Bloodstains and Bitemarks

by Kyra Quinn

  He wipes his mouth on the back of his arm and grins at me. “See? Not as bad as you expected, right?”

  I want to rip my arm out of the restraints and choke him. For as much as I thought I didn’t want him to touch me, having him bring me so close to completion only to stop is maddening. My clit throbs, aching for his mouth to finish what he started. A tiny whimper escapes my throat.

  “Don’t worry, love. The fun isn’t over yet.”

  I shudder.

  “I’m curious about something though.” He gives my clit a gentle flick. “When’s the last time you had an orgasm? If ever, that is.”

  Heat rushes through my body and into my cheeks. I drop my gaze to the floor.

  “That’s what I thought,” he says, his voice softening. “Your magic isn’t the only thing you’ve repressed. No wonder you’re always so tense.”

  I can’t tell if I want to laugh or scream. His feigned concern for my well-being only increases the pressure in the center of my chest. At this point, I’d welcome his whip. The pain is less confusing than the emotional storm swirling inside me now, and it’s over much faster.

  “Let’s see what happens if we let some of that out,” he says, the devious smile returning to his face. He smiles way too much. Overconfident prick.

  Kane reaches into the bowls of water I had all but forgotten about. He holds one dildo in each hand, admiring the glasswork. “I had planned to ram something in every one of your holes as punishment for using your body to deceive me. I don’t think that will help me achieve the results I want. Maybe next time you screw up.”

  I take a second to process his words. I wait for relief to ease the tension in my chest, but it doesn’t. It seems surreal to think tears and a touch of vulnerability softened the monster in front of me. He must have something more wicked planned.

  He drops the sex toys onto the floor with a wistful sigh. “Next time. This time, I want to watch you cum for the first time. I want to make sure your first orgasm is one you spend the rest of your life failing to beat.”

  Leave it to Kane to turn even this into a fucked-up competition. He’s not my mother’s killer, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t a more dangerous monster than Zeke. Leave it to me to develop feelings for a demon.

  His hand slides between my thighs, rubbing from my clit to the puddle of arousal on the mattress below. “You may not think you want this, pet, but you need it. Desperately. Enjoying yourself for a little while won’t hurt anyone.”

  I whimper. As much as I want to resist his seductive purrs, my willpower is crumbling more with every touch. He makes it sound so easy to just block out the thoughts racing through my head and surrender to the physical sensations he delivers. It probably is for a demon. But I can’t silence the voices screaming at me to resist him.

  Kane’s finger slides inside of me. “Something tells me you’re a little too fucked up inside to get off on the normal sensations. Let’s up the ante a little more, shall we?”

  Kane removes his finger and rises to his feet. He crosses the room and fetches the metal nipple clamps and a leather riding crop. He tosses them on the bed next to me and winks.

  “Pleasure, and pain. You’re a woman made up of dualities, Miss Gray. Daughter of a pastor and a witch. Demon hunter who seduced a demon. Artist who no longer creates.”

  The last part stings. I can’t remember the last time I sketched anything or picked up a guitar. Not since my mother died. The Dark Hunt and my quest for revenge consumed my entire life.

  He clamps the metal teeth into my nipples before his fingers return to my clit. “Is that better, pet? Do you enjoy it more when your senses are as confused as your head?”

  Damn it all to hell. He’s right. The more his thumb stimulates me, combined with the biting pressure in my nipples, the more my back arches to meet him. My breaths become short and ragged between strangled cries of pleasure. The air cracks, and a stinging sensation spreads inside my thigh. The riding crop. If it weren’t for the stupid ring crammed between my teeth, I’d beg him to hit me again.

  Kane chuckles, the sound deep and smug as he continues petting my most sensitive parts. “I suspected as much. You’re an enigma, pet, but I’ve cracked your code. Cum for me, baby.”

  Fuck. His mouth calling me ‘baby’ pushes me over the edge within seconds. Every muscle in my body contracts before spasming. The pressure in my chest releases as I scream until my throat is raw. After the brief but intense rush subsides, my legs tremble. Weakness settles into my bones. My eyelids grow heavy as I wait for my breathing to return to normal. After the sensations Kane just flooded my body with, I’m uncertain I know what normal is anymore.

  He clears his throat, but his voice sounds far away. “Uh... Nadia?”

  I grunt, too tired to open my eyes. He can remove the gag if he wants to have a proper conversation with me.

  He slaps my leg. “Hey. Err, I think we have a bit of a problem.”

  I don’t see how anything could be wrong. Not with how amazing I feel. Maybe he’s referring to the fact that he hasn’t cum yet. But I’m too tired to help him with that. Besides, he’s already gotten off once tonight. Now we’re even.

  “Seriously, Nadia,” he says, his voice more urgent, “what the fuck is that thing?”

  With some effort, I force my eyes open. I instantly wish I hadn’t. A shimmering vertical glow of light floats in the center of the room from the ceiling to the floor. The piercing brightness burns my eyes until I snap my eyes shut. I feel Kane’s hands lift my head and unfasten the gag.

  “That showed up right as you came all over my hand. Any idea what it is?”

  I move my jaw from side to side, hoping to stretch out some discomfort. “No clue.”

  “I knew I was good in bed, but I didn’t realize my talents could tear a hole through the fabric of time.” A sly grin spreads over his lips, but it doesn’t disguise the nervous flicker of his eyes. “Or whatever this crazy shit is.”

  He’s remarkably calm for someone only a few feet away from a magical portal. I’m sure not even demons can conjure those. Thanks to my mother’s paranoia, I have no idea what sort of things witches can summon. Or where a randomly appearing portal might lead to.

  The bedroom door flies open. Dagon and Arachne stand in the doorway with identical wide-eyed masks of horror. They gape at the glimmering crack in the center of the room and back away.

  “Kane,” Dagon says, his voice strained, “what the fuck is that?”

  “That,” Kane says, his eyes never leaving my face, “is a damn good question. Arachne, be a dear and help me untie Nadia so you can take her back to her room. Dagon and I have a fresh crisis to tend to.”

  The hint of amusement in his voice is the only thing that stops me from screaming. For whatever reason, Kane isn’t worried about whatever we’ve broken in the universe. I can’t help but wonder if this is what he wanted all along.

  Arachne’s hands tremble as she unties the knots around my wrists. She unhooks the cuffs around my ankles and removes the metal bar spreading my legs. She refuses to look at me, and her touch is anything but gentle. An arm snakes around me as she pulls me to my feet. She supports my weight and guides me past Kane and the glowing portal towards the open door.

  “Wait,” I croak, trying and failing to dig my heels in and stop. “I-I need answers, too.”

  Kane shakes his head, his expression hard. “Don’t make me remind you what happens when you speak out of turn. I won’t ask you twice to return to your room so I can clean up the mess you’ve created for us.”

  Fire burns through me, but Arachne drags me the rest of the way out of the room before my mouth can land me in any more trouble. Probably a blessing in disguise. With the way my pulse is throbbing in my neck and wrist, it’s anyone’s guess what sort of poison would spew from my lips.

  How fucking dare he insinuate any of this is my fault. He’s the one who ordered me dragged into the red room and restrained. It was his idea to spend all that time toying with
me, his fault I discovered my first orgasm tonight. If we happened to break the universe somehow, Kane can’t point the finger at anyone but himself.

  But he will anyway. That’s what demons do.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Kane

  “Sweet baby Satan, I don’t see how today can get any worse,” Dagon grumbles before throwing back a swig of Captain Morgan straight from the bottle. It’s not the best rum, but desperate times and all that.

  Whatever rip Nadia tore in reality with the force of her orgasm didn’t last long. The light flickered seconds after Arachne led her out of the room, fading out all together by the time the lock clicked into place. Dagon’s displeasure, however, lingered a lot longer.

  “Not my fault.” I pinch a bit of sticky weed from the bottom of the grinder in front of me and drop it into the thumb-sized bowl of a glass pipe. I don’t have the patience to roll anything. “I’m amazing in bed, but I don’t think it’s related to whatever happened upstairs.”

  He scowls. “Joke all you like, but I doubt we’re the only ones who felt that.”

  I need not ask what he’s referring to. Whatever Nadia did in the red room drained the energy from everyone in the house. Two hours later, my limbs still feel too heavy for my body. A jackhammer pounds in my head. Even simple spells require more effort than I can muster.

  “I suppose that clears up any question about whether she inherited her mother’s powers,” I say, at a loss for anything else.

  Dagon nods and takes another miserable swig of booze. “Which means that portal probably didn’t lead anywhere good. Let’s hope nothing crawled out of it while we weren’t looking.”

  But I have bigger concerns now. “How fucked are we now?”

  His brows furrow. “With the Knights?”

  “Fuck them. With the witch locked away upstairs. What if she can channel those powers any time she wants now? Death magic isn’t anything to trifle with.” I don’t want to consider how she’ll use her newfound abilities to make me pay.

  “Little late to worry about that now, don’t you think? You’ve already opened Pandora’s box. The only thing we can do now is ride out the consequences.”

  Awesome. Too bad I have no idea what the consequences of pissing off a new witch with an affinity for death magic is. Aside from a portal to the void appearing in my attic, apparently.

  Three sharp raps at the front door put an end to the conversation. Dagon disappears, returning with Lilith and Levi on his heels. Levi is dressed in his usual Valentino suit and a black bowler cap.

  Lilith sports nothing but a bikini top and some towel thing tied around her hips. She’s pulled her hair back in a high ponytail, and the inky strands appear damp. Oversized sunglasses hide her eyes. Her blood-red lips twist into a scowl as Dagon leads her into the kitchen.

  “Would you two like to explain yourselves?” Levi asks, his eyes shifting between me and Dagon.

  Dagon arches a brow. “We need you to elaborate.”

  There’s no point in playing dumb. I shake my head. “The prisoner isn’t as mortal as we expected. I pushed her too far, and her powers manifested in self-defense. I’m not sure how or what she did, but she has magic in her.”

  “She opened up some portal in the red room,” Dagon adds, resuming his spot in front of the counter with his rum. “It didn’t stay open long enough for us to send someone in to figure out where it went.”

  “The Betwixt,” Lilith says, grimacing. “A place more miserable than Hell.”

  “We’ll let her unknown powers be Michael’s problem,” Levi says.

  My jaw drops. “You can’t.”

  Lilith’s face brightens. “It worked. We mailed the ransom video to her father since he has ties with Michael and Zeke. Reverend Gray called this morning to inform us Zeke and Michael have accepted our terms for her safe return.”

  “We’ve arranged for you to meet Ezekiel tomorrow afternoon to return her,” Levi says.

  It’s like they sucked the oxygen out of the room. “Why are we handing the best weapon we have in this war to our enemy?”

  Lilith shakes her head. “She isn’t the one we need, but the hunters agreed to release our messenger and return the Cursed Blade. If our sources are correct, the little witch’s powers are intriguing, but the other girl is a ticking time bomb.”

  Dagon sets the bottle on the counter a bit too hard. “It might help if you filled us in on all the details for once.”

  Lilith only smiles. “I tell you what you need to know. You work for me, remember?”

  My hand twitches into a fist. I grit my teeth. Thankfully, Levi speaks before my temper gets the better of my mouth.

  “When you take your place among us, you’ll learn why discretion is so important. In love and war, the best moves are the ones made in silence. Your ex seemed to understand that.”

  Pain flickers through Dagon’s eyes for a second, gone so fast I’m not sure if I imagined it. “I understand, but my time as a general with the Legion has also shown me the importance of taking care of my team. The rest of the Paranormal communities don’t worship the Knights and Lucifer the way we do. They won’t risk their lives on our orders alone.”

  Lilith purses her lips. “What are you saying?”

  “That if we don’t stop playing our cards so close to our chest and protect the rest of our community, they won’t stand with us when the time comes.”

  She laughs. “Who says we need them to? The Legion alone has enough soldiers to outnumber Michael’s pathetic human hunters. Besides, let’s not forget whose cursed womb birthed the first vampire or wolf. Who blessed the witches with infernal magic? Should my children forsake me or refuse to come when called, well, I’ll remind them who their mother is.”

  Her speech, combined with the manic smile on her blood-red lips, sends a chill through me. I swallow the urge to point out how much she sounds like Lucifer. No, not Lucifer. The Prince of Darkness doesn’t give a shit about anything outside of Hell. Lilith is taking her notes from the heavenly God.

  “Cheer up, boys,” she says with an exaggerated pout. “This is delightful news. Come tomorrow, you can return the huntress brat to her keepers and move us one step closer towards ending this war. The Cursed Blade will shift the tides of battle in our favor.”

  “Not without the rest of the unholy trinity.” Dagon takes another greedy swig from the almost empty bottle in front of him. “The Cursed Blade is powerful on its own, but not enough to kill an Archangel. Not unless we find—”

  “The Morningstar and Death’s scythe, yes. Leave that to us.”

  I see an opening—admittedly small, but still worth a shot. “Couldn’t the witch come in handy with the scythe? If she shares her mother’s affinity for death magic, she may help us find it.”

  Lilith shakes her head. “Too risky. She’s still half mortal, and her powers are immature. Death is nothing to trifle with. We need the other girl.”

  “No progress on that yet.” Dagon frowns. “I’ve had my men keep an eye out for her, but either she’s a ghost or Michael has her hidden away somewhere.”

  I snatch the bottle from Dagon and finish the last mouthful, savoring the burn. Fuck me. Deep down, I always knew how the Nadia situation would end. But that doesn’t lessen the sting. Michael and Zeke won’t trust Nadia after how long she’s spent here. They’ll kill her the moment we turn her over.

  “This is a mistake,” I say, aware I’m pressing what little luck I have. “Half-blood or not, she’s powerful. If we hand her over to our enemy, we’d might as well resign ourselves to defeat. We can find another way to get the blade.”

  Lilith throws her head back and growls. “You’re not some lovesick teenager, Kane. You’re the future leader of the Legion of Hell, and we expect you to act like it. Goodbyes are never easy, but it’s time to say yours and send her back where she came from. Our people come first.”

  Damn it all to Heaven. I hate it, but the leader in me can’t disagree. No matter how much I crave Nadia�
�s presence by my side, I have soldiers to lead and a community to guide. What’s coming requires a rational mind and a life free of distractions. Love, and especially loving a woman like Nadia, is a definite distraction.

  “I’ll handle the drop,” I say, my shoulders slumping. It’s only fair considering I’m the one who took her. “I don’t expect she’ll return quietly.”

  She waves my concerns away and laughs. “She’s a puny half-witch. How much trouble can she give you?”

  Considering the hole she ripped between the realms, part of me is relieved I won’t have to find out. I always suspected Naida would be more trouble than any of us bargained for. It’s impressive Zeke kept her line for as long as he did.

  But reputation is everything in this line of work. The other Paranormals follow Dagon because they respect and fear him in equal measures. If I’m to fill his footsteps and engender the same loyalty, I need to shed any weaknesses like a worn-out skinsuit. Starting with the witch locked upstairs.

  “She won’t give me any trouble,” I say, forcing a smile. “She’s learned her place. But I worry for the angels after we set her loose on them. Now that she knows who killed her mother, and how to channel her mother’s magic, I don’t suspect she’ll show the same blind obedience.”

  Levi frowns. “Michael won’t give her the chance to do anything.”

  Probably not, but I’m trying not to think about what comes next for her. Even though we haven’t known each other long, I hate the thought of living in a world where Nadia doesn’t exist. But can a half-blood witch save herself from an Archangel’s judgment? Unlikely, but stranger things have happened.

  “Smile, gentlemen,” Lilith says, her glacial smile returned. “This is marvelous news for our side. If things go to plan, we can end the Unholy Wars once and for all.”