Awakened by a Demoness (11 page)

She sank against the tree and didn’t fight him as he pulled back. He fumbled with his fly with one hand, cursing the buttons as they made it difficult to open it without taking his other hand off her backside.

Her eyes fluttered open, bright glowing blue in the shadows of the forest, and she removed her hands from his shoulders, raised them above her head and sank her claws into the thick bark of the tree, holding herself up. He took his other hand from her hip and made fast work of his jeans, her panted breaths driving him on together with the feel of her eyes burning into him and the sudden spike in the desire he could feel in her.

She impatiently wriggled.

The moment his cock sprang free, she raised her legs and he shuddered as her heels scraped down his back and buttocks as she used them to shove his jeans down to his thighs.

She looked so wanton and beautiful against the tree, gripping it fiercely, her eyes on his, calling to him.

He groaned and took hold of his cock, refused to think about what he was doing. The tiny shred of sanity that was returning was still quiet enough that the buzzing in his mind, the fire in his veins, overruled it.

When the head of his length found her silken folds, that shred of sanity disintegrated again.

His breath hitched, lungs tight, and he couldn’t get air into them as he guided himself downwards, her slick juices coating the sensitive head of his cock.

Asteria arched as he nudged inside her.

His breath left him in a dizzying rush at the feel of her. She still trembled from the climax he had given her by licking her horn, quivering around him, driving him dangerously close to the edge of release. The heat of her engulfed him and he couldn’t hold himself back, couldn’t do this in a way that part of him wanted—gentle, tender.

He snarled as he drove his cock deep into her, striking a point where he could go no further.

Asteria lurched in his arms, her keening cry speaking of pleasure not pain.

Her hands came down hard on his shoulders, claws sinking in, and her mouth seized his. He fought her for dominance, driving her back into submission as her body gloved him, scalded him with her heat. He grunted and withdrew slowly, and then plunged deep back into her, making her feel every inch of him. She shuddered again, gripped him tighter, whispered a plea against his lips that he didn’t hear as he began thrusting into her.

She clawed at him, the scent of blood filling the air around them, and he hissed and grabbed her backside, pinned her against the tree and drove into her, lost to the feel of her and the heat blasting through him. Damn, he loved how wild she was in his arms, claws scratching at his shoulders, leaving fiery streaks in their wake, and mouth battling his. The ferocity of her passion, how untamed she was, only made him burn hotter for her, his need for her becoming something far beyond his control.

Something that mastered him.

Her heels pressed into his backside, her moans of supplication filling his ears, pulling him deeper under her spell. He gave her what she wanted, thrust deep and hard, fulfilling that image she had painted of them together. His length grew thicker, harder still, and sensation overloaded him, until he lost control completely. He bit her lower lip, sucked viciously on it as he drove into her tight sheath, his breath coming fast, matching hers as she panted and trembled, urged him to take her harder.

Damn, he wasn’t sure he would last another second if he did.

He broke away from her mouth, ruled by his darker instincts, animalistic ones he had never realised he possessed. He slid his arms under her knees and pulled them up higher as he grasped her backside, curled his hips and slid deeper into her, groaning in time with her as his pelvis struck hers.

“Rey, please…” she moaned against his throat and kissed and licked it, her horns brushing his skin, cool against him when she was on fire.

He grunted and bit down on her bare shoulder with his blunt teeth, held her as he took her. Her juices coated him as he thrust hard and deep, long strokes that had his knees trembling as his arousal mounted. His balls drew up, painfully tight, and he sank his teeth deeper into her. He was vaguely aware of the taste of blood on his tongue, but the feel of her clenching his cock, flexing around him shattered that awareness.

“Rey,” she whispered into his ear, nibbled and sucked the lobe, and dug her heels into his backside, shoving him into her.

He plunged deep and fierce.

She cried out and his right ear rang from her loud shriek of pleasure.

Her body came alive around him, hot release scalding his cock as she quivered and shook, her claws pressing into his flesh and breath warm on his neck.

He growled low in his throat and then grunted against her shoulder, his teeth still lodged in it, as the entire world around him exploded into a million glittering stars and his cock pulsed, each jet of seed stealing his breath from him. His knees weakened as white-hot bliss rolled through him, robbing him of his senses, and he had to grip the tree to stop himself from collapsing.

She pressed light kisses along his shoulder and he released hers, hazy and lost as he struggled to cope with the rush of new sensations. Pleasure. Bliss. An undeniable warmth that started in the centre of his chest.

It slowly spread through him, but it wasn’t strong enough to stop the cold that followed it.

The icy chill of realisation.

He withdrew from Asteria, set her down and backed away from her as what he had done crashed over him. She busied herself with rearranging her clothing, pulling her stockings back up her thighs and smoothing her skirt and hair, a smile on her face and glow to her cheeks.

Rey tucked himself away, buttoned his trousers and looked for his t-shirt. It lay discarded on the lawn and he remembered it had been covered in the potion the half-breed had launched at them.

Potion.

He backed away another step, head spinning as that hit him.

The half-breed had struck him with a spell, one that had messed with his head and had ignited his lust.

A lust potion.

Asteria lifted her head, her eyes settling on him. Her smile faltered and the colour on her cheeks faded as they paled.

“Rey?”

The lust potion was the only reason he had done it with her.

He did not desire her.

He could not.

Asteria had been mistaken. Rey wasn’t holy at all. He was a demon in the guise of an angel, a wicked male who sent the temperature of her blood soaring.

A brief flicker of disappointment went through her when he pulled away from her just as she was about to get him fired up all over again and challenge him into seeing just how great angel stamina could be. She busied herself with fixing her appearance, buzzing so fiercely from the two climaxes he had given her that she didn’t notice the way he was looking at her until she lifted her head to issue the challenge anyway.

It died on her lips when she found stormy gold eyes glaring at her, fixing her with a look that warned she was about to get trampled on for the millionth time in her life.

“Rey?”

He cut her down with a scowl. “This was a mistake and it will not happen again.”

She pushed away from the tree. He wanted her. It was right there in his eyes. He was denying himself.

What they had done had shaken him.

Well, he wasn’t alone in feeling that way, but he didn’t see her losing her shit and distancing herself.

“Come on, Rey,” she coaxed in a low whisper, managing a little smile for him. “You know you liked it… you know you want it again.”

She raked her eyes over him, moaned at just the sight of him despite the fact he had covered up.

She took a step towards him.

Huge mistake.

Light burst from the mark on his wrist and a sword appeared in his hand. Crimson flames licked along the white blade, almost black near the guard.

“Do not come near me, Demon,” he spat and despite her best attempts to let it bounce off her, those words cut deeper than his blade ever could. While she was still reeling from the first blow, he followed up with another. “I never want to see you again. This was a spell. Nothing more. If I ever see you again, I will be the last thing you see.”

He disappeared, leaving her alone in the woods, still quivering from being with him.

Fucking bastard.

Damn him to Hell and let the Devil make him his plaything.

He would be back.

He had somehow found the strength to leave, blaming their explosive moment on a damned spell, but he wouldn’t be able to find the strength to stay away. She knew it because she felt the same pull towards him, the same undeniable hunger that drew her to him.

When he came back to her, she would give him hell and show him that no one in Hell, Earth or Heaven treated her like that and got away with it.

She folded her arms across her chest, held on to her anger and nursed it, tried to stoke it hotter. The hurt was quick to come though, and as much as she tried to ignore it and keep her mind on hating him, she couldn’t stop it from spreading cold tendrils through her as she realised something.

She was allowing herself to get tangled up in someone, had forgotten to keep her distance, and this time it was infinitely worse.

There was only heartache ahead.

Because she was falling for an angel.

Asteria stared down at her boots, heart sore and aching at the thought she might never see him again. By the Devil, she was messed up if she was pining after an angel.

He was her fated one though.

The only male in the three realms that she could form an eternal bond with through mating.

Her eyes widened and she raised her right hand, touched her shoulder and felt the imprint of his teeth there. He had bitten her. Her heart thundered, making her feel sick as she shook her head. It couldn’t mean anything. Demons mated through exchanging blood, but he had no fangs, and he was no demon.

She twisted her head and tried to get a clear view of the marks. They were dark pink but it didn’t look as if he had broken the skin.

Asteria let out a long sigh of relief as her fear melted away.

She looked towards the gate in the distance and considered leaving, but where would she go? She couldn’t return to Hell without the half-breed, and she probably wouldn’t survive more than a few months at most in the mortal realm without an angel cutting her down or the Devil sending men after her.

She heaved another sigh, picked up the scattered pieces of her heart and pulled her shit back together. She was here on a mission and nothing was going to stand in the way of her completing it. She was a demon of the Devil’s service, a powerful and formidable female, and no one was going to scare her away from her mark. Not even an angel.

She clenched her fists at her sides, mustered her strength and set her jaw. Her fangs grew longer, cutting into her gums, and she snarled through them as her horns flared forwards. She flicked her long black hair over her shoulders, stood a little straighter and kicked all soft and stupid feelings out of her chest.

She was a demoness.

A powerful and formidable female.

Angels be damned.

The Fifth Commander of the Echelon could go fuck himself.

If she ever saw him again, he would be the one to end up dead.

Asteria stormed through the woods, heading back to the gate to the fae town. Her mark was down there, hiding among the thousands who inhabited it, and she was going to damn well find her. She had dallied enough. This mission ended now.

She strode down the dank corridor that wound into the heart of the earth and didn’t slow as she reached the small plateau above the town at the end of the tunnel. She banked left, walked down the steps in such a determined fashion that everyone coming up them got out of her path.

The way it should be.

She glared at them all and then she did the one thing guaranteed to make her feel fabulous.

She broke with convention and unleashed her wings. The black dragon-like wings sprouted from her back, arched high to end in clawed tips above her head, and she kicked off the staircase, throwing herself over the edge almost thirty feet above the ground. She spread her wings and beat them, flew over the flat roofs of the square white-washed buildings in the witches’ district and then the haphazard Tudor-style ones of the demons’ district, her eyes constantly scanning the busy cobbled streets below.

Many of the people on them stopped to stare up at her, stunned expressions on their faces.

Asteria gave them something to gawp at.

She focused on her body and called her armour, swapping her mortal clothing for crimson-edged black heavy plates that moulded over her legs and snaked up her waist, falling in a V from it to just below her navel, and the chest piece that barely covered her breasts. She even called her gauntlets, the black plates appearing over her forearms with a smaller plate that protected the back of her hand and metal claws that covered her fingers.

She felt her eyes change, her vision growing more vivid and sharper as her pupils stretched into thin vertical golden lines in the centre of her black irises.

As she unleashed her power, her senses sharpened too, allowing her to detect all the different signatures of the creatures below her. She sifted through them, hunting for angelic blood. The damned half-breed carried it in her veins, mingled with demon blood. Asteria’s instincts as a demon had warned her of Rey back in Fort William, screaming that he was an angel.

That same protective instinct should be able to help her locate the half-breed too.

Her wings grew tired as she flew around the town, her mood souring as she found no sign of the female, or Rey.

Had he found the female already and taken her away?

Her mood took a nosedive at that thought and her body followed it as her wings gave out, weak from under using them.

She landed near the black tavern and a few demon males called to her. All from the mutinous ranks. It wouldn’t normally stop her from flirting with them, but she couldn’t even muster the will to do that as fear and despair sank their claws into her. She pushed past them and entered the tavern, making a beeline for the bar and ignoring the way the males in the room all turned hungry eyes on her.