Her Soul to Take (Souls Trilogy)

by Harley Laroux

  Leon’s scent enveloped me, soft citrus and smoke. Comfort. Safety. I never would have imagined feeling a demon’s arms tighten around me would provide that feeling, but I could have cried from relief at seeing him again. He was dressed entirely in black: cargo pants, boots, and some kind of tight military jacket. The perfect costume to completely obscure his identity.

  “I was beginning to think you’d forgotten me, doll,” he growled, holding me close with his hand gripping tight on the nape of my neck. “It was a cute little show you put on grinding between these two, but it gave me a feeling you’ve forgotten who you belong to.”

  Zane chuckled, but Sam was glaring. “Maybe if you’d paid a little bit closer attention, it wouldn’t have been necessary.”

  Leon cocked his head curiously, his fingers toying with my hair, tugging at it lightly as if he was resisting the urge to pull. The only parts of his face that could be seen were his eyes and his mouth, which was twisted into a smirk. “Juniper Kynes...so grown up now.”

  I gasped at her name. Juniper — the last sacrifice. The failed sacrifice.

  She remained grim-faced. “I’m not a scared little girl anymore. I’m much better armed than I was at fifteen.”

  “So glad you remember me.” Leon glanced cautiously down the hall. He was no longer holding me against his chest, but he kept his arm around my shoulders as I stood beside him. “Hold on to that anger. It keeps you strong.”

  I’d never seen a person move so fast. Juniper whipped out a knife she’d had tucked beneath her jacket and pressed the blade up against Leon’s mouth. Zane groaned, and I felt Leon stiffen just slightly as I sucked in my breath.

  “You’re lucky Zane has any affection for you,” she hissed. “Because you were first on my list.”

  My fingers tightened on Leon’s jacket, my hand balling into a fist. If this bitch thought she could threaten my —

  “Easy, girl.” I wasn’t sure if Leon was referring to me, her, or both. The tension went out of him. “Don’t threaten me with a good time.”

  When she didn’t immediately move the knife away, Leon ran his forked tongue along the blade. Blood welled up as he tasted the knife’s edge, and dripped over his lips, staining his teeth as he gave her smile.

  “Enjoy the party,” he said, gave Zane a quick wink, and kept me close as he walked away.

  But he didn’t walk me back toward the party. He headed the opposite direction, further down the hall, where the house was quieter and the music was a subtle beat that rumbled the floor. The wall to our right was all glass, giving a view over the lawn toward the trees. He didn’t say a word, but I felt his tension building up again, heat and hardness under his skin. We turned a corner, near a stairway leading to the upper floor, and in a move so quick it left me dizzy, he yanked me from his side and pinned me to the wall.

  His kiss tasted of iron as his hand wrapped around my throat, the tightness of his grip barely restrained as his bleeding tongue played over mine. He’d asked if I’d forgotten him, but my body would never forget. His kiss was like firecrackers going off in my head, an instant hot rush that tingled all the way down to my toes. His blood stained my mouth like a wicked offering, my belly tightening up as his body pressed to me, and I felt the hardness of his cock against my hip.

  His taste was violence, his blood the sweetest sin I’d ever consumed.

  He squeezed my throat, urging a whimper out of me as our mouths parted for a brief moment and he gave me a bloody grin.

  “Fuck,” My voice cracked as I gasped. He extended his forked tongue, blood still slowly welling from the cut across it, and I couldn’t resist. I tasted his tongue with mine, caught it between my lips and sucked until our mouths met again: bloody and vile, perverted as hell.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing here, Rae?” His voice was rough, exasperated. “Already trying to hop on the next demonic dick you encounter?”

  “We were just dancing,” I muttered. “I —”

  “Oh, don’t worry, doll.” His fingers caressed my cheek, and he used his thumb to wipe his blood from around my mouth as he kept his grip on my throat. “I’m not jealous. It’s cute how desperate you are. But I think you know that no one else will fuck you like I can.”

  I gulped, looking up at him as he loomed over me. “You left,” I said softly. “You left me.”

  He shrugged. “You didn’t make me stay.”

  “I’ve been so fucking scared, Leon.”

  His hold softened, a wince flickering over his face. He didn’t give me any distance, as if he was afraid I might slip away. “Fucking hell, Rae. Why the hell did you come here?”

  “I didn’t exactly have a choice,” I said, frowning despite my arousal. “I need a way to protect myself and I thought maybe I’d find something here.”

  Leon’s eyes flickered back down the hall, pausing at whatever noise he’d heard, before turning his skeptical gaze back on me. “So you’re here to sneak around in Kent Hadleigh’s own house? To search for a weapon?”

  “Yes,” I said, folding my arms — although the motion didn’t have as much petulant impact when I was pinned by my throat to the wall. “Are you going to help me or not?”

  “Help you —” He gave a single, hard laugh. “I’ll help you over my knee is what I’ll do.”

  His hold tightened again, and another whimper squeaked out of me, this one sharp in anticipation. His free hand moved down, settled near my hip then gripped my ass, before giving it a sharp spank.

  His grip choked my sharp intake of breath at the sting. “I knew I should have marked you,” he growled. “I’m not a jealous being, Rae, but I don’t like to see you play without being marked as mine before anyone else.” His eyes flickered down, then his head lowered too. He pushed up my sweater, kissing slowly, tenderly along my breasts above my bra, before biting my flesh hard enough to make me yelp.

  “I told you I wanted to pierce these,” he said. “You’d look so good with my metal in you.”

  How much that idea scared me only made it hotter. Imagining him piercing my nipples to “mark” me was making me wet, and without even realizing what I was doing, I ground my hips up against him. The stimulation was just enough to make me shudder before he shoved me back against the wall again.

  “Was that yes, please do it?” he said. “Or am I just imagining how goddamn eager you are?”

  Fuck, I wanted him — needed him, right here, right now. These weeks without him had felt like an eternity. But I couldn’t forget where we were, and I couldn’t forget what I’d come here for.

  “If you help me find my way around the house, you can mark me,” I said softly. His eyes narrowed, his jaw hardening as he considered my offer.

  “Mm, that’s a very naughty offering, Rae.” He was so close I could barely breathe — it took all my self-control not to wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him again, taste him again. “I don’t want you in this house.”

  “We’ll be quick,” I said.

  “Why do you think there’s anything at all in this house that’s worth risking your life for?”

  “You said Kent had magical artifacts. If he has a charm to protect him from you, maybe he has something to protect me from the God.” His eyes had narrowed. He didn’t like it, but I wasn’t wrong. “Help me find it. Because if I’m not going to enroll in your Demonic Protection Plan, I need something to defend myself.”

  He didn’t look happy as he glared from behind his mask, but finally his expression softened. “So I help you find Kent’s stash and I get to pierce those cute little nipples, yeah? That’s the deal?”

  I gulped, but I still had enough alcohol in my system to sound completely confident as I said, “Yeah. That’s the deal.”

  “Alright then. Stay quiet, and stay close.”

  We crept up the stairway, emerging onto the upper floor near some kind of secondary living room with a covered pool table and large, thickly cushioned white chairs. It was a good thing the party had managed to stay conta
ined to the front of the house. There was no way we could have managed this if the guests had spread out. But the upper floor was dark, all the lights off and the doors closed.

  A clear indication that no one was meant to be up here.

  I was itching to open every door, but Leon knew where he was going. The hall ended at a cross, and Leon headed to the right, taking us along another glass-walled hall with a view out over the dark yard. The house was so big that the thump of the music seemed vastly distant now. I kept expecting to feel my phone buzz in my pocket; Inaya would start wondering where I was soon. Hopefully she was distracted enough — drunk enough — to forget about me for a little longer.

  The hall ended at a set of gray double doors. Leon held a finger to his mouth in warning before he took a long and careful look at the doorknobs, then at the crack between the doors.

  “What are you looking for?” I whispered, only to have him wave his hand at me yet again to be quiet. Slowly, he opened the door, cracking it just an inch before the tension went out of his shoulders and he pushed it open the rest of the way.

  “Checking for any protective magic,” he said. “Would really be a stupid way to go if you escaped the God only to be killed instantly for touching a doorknob.”

  The knowledge that there were spells that could kill with just a touch had me stepping much more cautiously through the doorway. The bedroom was spacious, with gleaming wood floors and a large white rug. Everything was in monochromatic tones, from the gray sheets to the white pillows, and the black curtains pulled back on the far glass wall.

  Leon quietly shut the door behind us, glaring around the room as if it personally offended him. “Never thought I’d find myself creeping back in here again. Hate this room.”

  “Were you in here often?”

  “Once or twice, and that was too many. Kent had a thing for administering punishments while he was lounging around in here. I suppose it was a relaxing pastime for him to magically break a few of my bones when I fucked up his orders.”

  It was grim to imagine such a luxurious space being used for something so sinister. It was even harder to imagine Leon under someone else’s command: he had so much power, so much overwhelming strength that the thought of him being ordered around by a mere human sounded ludicrous.

  But even a powerful demon could be broken with pain.

  Everything in here looked expensive: the modern glass and steel chandelier overhead, the black marble fireplace beneath the massive flatscreen, the huge painting in a gilded frame above the bed. It depicted a woman standing in the midst of a stormy sea, her arm outstretched with a dagger pointed toward the sky. Black tentacles were coiled around her arm, as if to grasp the knife with her. It looked like it could have been painted in the Renaissance, beautiful and dramatic. But it wasn’t a weapon.

  Nothing in here looked like a weapon.

  The open window showed only our reflections until I passed by it, and a floodlight flickered on below, illuminating a large section of the lawn. Motion caught my attention, and as I stared, I saw something dark and skeletal creep back among the trees.

  They’d followed me here. Of course they had. I couldn’t shake these monsters no matter where I went.

  Leon’s arms wrapped around me from behind, and his teeth nipped at my ear as he whispered, “Why are you afraid of them lurking around, when you know the most dangerous thing in this house is me?” He turned me in his arms, nudging up my chin with his fingers. “And I’m on your side, lucky for you.”

  Goose bumps crept up my spine with my back turned to the window. I hated knowing they were out there. I hated this constant feeling of being hunted. “Are you?”

  He frowned. “Excuse me?”

  “Are you on my side? Really?”

  His expression grew serious, almost angry. His playful smirk was gone. “What the hell gave you the idea that I wasn’t, Rae?”

  I bit my lip, shaking my head. “You plan on leaving again, don’t you? I don’t know what I’m supposed to do if I don’t find something here to protect myself. Those things won’t leave me alone.” I tried to look back out the window, but Leon caught my face and wouldn’t let me look.

  “I came back,” he said. “Doesn’t that count for something?”

  “It’s temporary,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. But I was scared, and I’d been keeping all my fears and frustrations quiet because who the hell was I supposed to talk to about it?

  Who would understand, besides him?

  “I don’t do temporary.” His voice was a snarl as he tucked his hands behind his back. It felt like a warning now, when he did that. His hands were clasped away, but that didn’t mean he didn’t want to touch me. It was an indicator of his self-control, an effort not to do too much before I was begging for it. “You have forgotten — you’re mine, Rae. Frankly I should punish you for daring to suggest otherwise.”

  My mouth had gone dry, but my pussy hadn’t. It was heating quickly at his words, swelling in anticipation. I ran my tongue over my lips, realizing just how foolish I’d sounded. These weeks of loneliness and fear had gotten to me, and I’d missed his attention more than I could ever say. I’d missed his fire, his brutality, his absolutely immoveable certainty that I belonged to him.

  I needed that assurance now, desperately.

  “You won’t punish me here,” I said. “In Kent’s own bedroom, you wouldn’t dare –“

  “You think I wouldn’t?” His voice had dropped dangerously low. He stalked around me as I stood there, heart pounding with the rush of pushing him. I wanted a reaction, and if challenging him would get it, then that’s what I’d do.

  “What if you’d caught me in here a few months ago, Leon?” I said, resisting the urge to turn as he stalked behind me. He’d managed to wipe from my mind the fear of the monster lurking outside, turning all my attention to him and what he was doing.

  What he planned on doing.

  “What if,” he murmured, then chuckled. “What if, indeed? Are you trying to suggest, that if I’d caught you in here while I was still in Kent’s service, I would have caused you harm?” He brushed his fingers across the back of my neck, stroking through my hair, his claws sharp as they scratched lightly over my skin. “You underestimate me, Rae. Kent never even would have had to know I’d caught you here. But I still would have had to punish you, if only to teach you a lesson about sneaking into places you shouldn’t.”

  I gulped. His hands slipped around my waist, claws digging through the fabric of my sweater to prick against my hips. His lips brushed against my neck, then caressed beneath my ear, and I closed my eyes as my breath shuddered.

  “So nervous,” he said softly. “What do you need, doll?”

  “A distraction,” I whispered. “I need to feel safe. I need…I need you.”

  I felt his lips curl into a smile against my skin. “A distraction? Shall I distract you with the thought that even if Kent still commanded me, I wouldn’t hurt you?” He came around to stand in front of me again, his claws tracing along my jaw until they pressed into the tender skin right under my chin. “Even as I punish you, as cruelly and brutally as I please, I’m still going to protect you. Is that the distraction you need?”

  “Yes. Please.”

  “Please.” He chuckled. “It sounds so pretty when you say it. Are you going to submit willingly, or do I need to force you to accept what you want?”

  I took a slow step back, then another. I was restless, my limbs trembling, tingling with adrenaline and the need to fight, to run.

  “Ah, so by force it is.” He came after me, every step just as slow and measured as mine. My face was hot, and he inhaled deeply before his eyes flashed gold, and he gave me a wide, sharp grin. “I can smell that. Your dripping arousal, so fucking eager for me.”

  I shook my head, but inside I was screaming yes. The fantasy of being taken by Leon — forcibly, as punishment — made my pussy throb. Very real terror lurked outside, but in here, I was safe in his hands. Safe,
even as he played my fear like a violin.

  Dangerous fantasies felt cathartic when there were so many real things to be afraid of.

  “You shouldn’t have been wandering in forbidden places, doll. See what happens when you do?”

  He lunged for me, and I catapulted across the bed to make a run for the door. I knew I wouldn’t reach it. I had no desire to get away. But my heart still leapt into my throat when he grabbed hold of me and yanked me back, throwing me down on the mattress. His strength was irresistible; he threw me around like a ragdoll, flipping me over so that I lay on my back with him straddling me.

  It felt good to throw my fists at him, to kick and buck and wiggle. I knew it was all useless, that I wouldn’t get away. But struggling released my tension, it eased that jittery energy in me. When he snatched my wrists and pinned them to the bed with one big hand, and used his other hand to grip around my throat, arousal burned through me like wildfire.

  I panted beneath him as he leaned close, laughing wickedly. “Tell me you remember, Rae. What makes the game stop?”

  “Mercy,” I whispered.

  “Good girl.” His grip tightened roughly, his claws digging into my neck. He looked terrifying and unknown with the mask on, and I could imagine he truly was a stranger, a demon I’d never met who’d caught me snooping where I shouldn’t be.

  “Better keep quiet,” he growled. “You don’t want my employer to find out about this now, do you? It’ll only be worse for you if he does.” He chuckled as I turned my head away from him defiantly, and he ran his tongue up the side of my face. I shuddered at the sensation, and a whimper escaped me as he bit my ear.

  “Let me go,” I squeaked around the pressure of his hand, squirming uselessly. My thighs tightened with need as his forked tongue flicked at me from between his parted lips, taunting me. “Please, let me go.”

  “Not a chance.” He dragged me back to the edge of the mattress. He stood behind the bed, yanked me over the edge, and held me down on my stomach so that I was bent over the side of the mattress. His hand slipped beneath my skirt, his nails ripping the thin fabric of my black stockings. “No matter how much you squeal and beg, you don’t fool me; you’re going to love every second of what I’m about to do to you. I’m going to fucking ruin you.”