Demons and Lovers (3 page)

Slowly, so slowly, he eased down her body, licking, tasting, sucking. His tongue left a wet path over her collarbone then up the rise of her breast to her nipple. When he latched onto the taut nub, Ericka cried out and arched her back. His long dark hair brushed her skin in a silken caress as he moved his mouth to her other nipple.

Ericka’s mind spun and she was beyond words as he thrust two fingers into her core and pumped them at the same time. She clenched her hands in his hair and squirmed as she rode his fingers while he pounded them in and out of her.

When he had eased himself down her body so that his head was between her thighs, Ericka could barely breathe. Blood rushed in her ears as his breath stirred the curls of her mound.

Ericka let out a cry as he swiped his tongue from the sensitive place between her anus and folds, all the way up to her clit. His hair felt silken between her thighs as he moved his head and drove his fingers in and out of her.

The intensity of his licking and sucking her clit was almost too much to bear. So much, so much, so much! She had to climax. She was so close to orgasm she could almost scream.

She parted her lips with a louder moan while he continued to delve into her folds. Tingling sensations ran rampant in her body, and her mind spun with desire.

Just when she thought she was going to lose control, he stopped.

“Aedan!” she shouted and looked down at him. She felt dizzy, lightheaded, and wanted to have an orgasm so badly she was almost insane with it. “Don’t stop. Please.”

Tears stung the backs of her eyes from her incredible need to climax. Aedan raised his head at the same time she looked down and she saw a spark in his gold eyes. He was so good-looking, so masculine, so powerful, his muscles flexing with every movement he made. Her breathing grew harsher and her heart thundered as she stared at Aedan’s starkly handsome face. Her dark lover.

Always she’d thought of him as her dark lover, the way he came in the night and left her sweating and wanting. Was he going to leave her aching for fulfillment—even more so than before?

Not this time! Not this time. He can’t do it to me again.

Aedan smiled, an incredibly sexy smile that caused more tingling and wetness between her thighs.

He lowered his head and swiped her folds again with his tongue. She gasped as he began pounding his fingers in and out of her core again.

This time it seemed like her head was going to float away and only the heat and ache in her body kept her grounded. What he was doing to her was more than she could bear. Her body trembled. She was so close to losing total control.

She couldn’t think past what she was feeling. The edge of a massively powerful orgasm rushed toward her—it was like she was burning in white-hot fire. She needed to climax and climax now.

He stopped.

For a moment Ericka was disoriented, ripped away from the peak she had almost fallen over.

“Don’t stop,” she begged again. Perspiration coated her skin and her hair was damp against her scalp. She squirmed as he slipped his fingers out of her core. “Don’t do this to me.”

A predatory smile crept over his face. He rose up between her thighs and placed his cock at the opening of her core and nudged it enough to make her gasp. She held her breath, waiting for that moment of penetration that would bring her fulfillment. For days she’d prepared for this. He would finally be inside of her.

Aedan’s gaze caught hers and for a moment it was like he had cast a spell over her. Ericka’s body was still on fire but suddenly she felt suspended in time. Waiting. Wanting.

He opened his mouth as if to say something, then stopped. Again he started, then closed his mouth.

His expression changed to one of anger. “She’s not ready yet,” he growled, like he was talking to himself.

The spell fell away. “I’m ready!” Ericka squirmed, wondering what in the hell he meant.

He shook his head. “Not yet.” Ericka cried out as he moved away and rested on his haunches.

Tears flowed freely down her face. She rose so that she was sitting up and pounded her fists on his rock-hard chest. “You can’t do this to me!”

He leaned down and kissed her forehead. “I am sorry.”

Frustration and fury flooded Ericka. “You bastard.” She slapped him as hard as she could.

Aedan’s head snapped to the side, and then he looked directly at her. She flinched when he put his fingers to her forehead.

Relaxation flowed through her, taking the edge off her need to climax. Not entirely, but enough that she didn’t think she was going to die if she didn’t have an orgasm.

Aedan drew Ericka into his embrace. She collapsed against his chest, her arms around his neck. And she cried. She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, as Aedan rose to his feet and carried her toward her bed.

He laid her gently on the mattress and she stared up at him. The bedsprings creaked beneath his weight as he sat next to her. He stroked her hair from her face and he wore an odd expression. Regret? Sadness? Longing?

She didn’t care. This time she was pissed.

“Damn you.” She pushed herself up in her bed and shoved him away. “Why are you doing this to me?”

He shook his head. “It is difficult to explain.”

“What?” Ericka nearly smacked him again. “How can it be difficult for you to not give me a damn orgasm?”

“It is time for me to go.” He cupped her face and ran his thumb across her cheek. “I am sorry.”

She knocked his hands away and stared into his eyes. “Tell me who you really are. Tell me what’s going on.”

“Nothing, sweet one.” He brushed his fingertips over her forehead and closed his eyes, the gold of them lost to her for a moment. “Be at ease.”

He opened his eyes and Ericka felt a little dizzy as he lowered her fully onto her back and drew a quilt to her shoulders. She needed to climax, she knew it. Yet the intensity she’d experienced moments ago faded a bit.

He kissed her cheek. “Sleep. I will return.”

Ericka’s eyelids drooped. She didn’t have the strength to fight off his kiss or tell him to go to hell. She was too limp, too exhausted.

She tumbled into a world of crazy, crazy dreams.

Chapter 3

Aedan narrowed his brows as he turned away from Ericka, walked through the veil and the archway. What in the Otherworlds had he been thinking? At that moment, when she’d been so close to orgasm, when he could have taken her, she would have given him anything. Even though she wouldn’t have realized what she was giving up, she would have said the words. He had sensed it, known it.

And he hadn’t asked her for her soul.

He half expected the guides to the Realm of the Dead to be waiting for him.

Instead, Kyne and Jett were.

“What the fuck was that about?” Kyne shouted, his gold eyes blazing. His muscles tightened as he clenched his fists at his sides. “You had her. She would have turned over her soul without thinking twice.”

“She wasn’t ready.” With a thought, Aedan dressed himself in a toga then tried to shoulder his way past Kyne and Jett, but both stepped in front of him.

“Are you out of your mind?” Jett was as loud as Kyne had been. She tossed her long black hair over her shoulder. “By all that crawls the Realm of the Dead, she was ready.”

“You are much too close to this one.” Kyne folded his arms across his chest, his look fierce. “Errol or I should finish it.”

“You hold no power over me.” Heat washed over Aedan and he scowled at Kyne. “This is my assignment and I will complete it. Neither you nor Errol will touch her.”

I will save her from you,
whispered his mind.
And from myself, too.

“You are coming with us.” Jett took him by his upper arm and tugged, her fingers pressing into his flesh.

He stood firm. “I am retiring to my quarters.”

“No,” Kyne said. “First we have something you must see.”

A low rumble rose within Aedan. “If it will get you to leave me in peace.”

Jett studied him. “That will be for you to decide.”

Aedan growled again, but walked between Jett and Kyne from the Chamber of Veils into the Hall of the Lost. The floor was cool and smooth beneath his bare feet, the silence thick and heavy between the three of them.

The vast hall stretched endlessly, yet it wasn’t long before they reached a chamber that Aedan had always avoided. It was the Chamber of Futures, and he had never desired to see what lay in store for him. His future would be whatever he made of it. He merely had to make the choice.

To pacify his companions, he allowed Kyne and Jett to shove him into the room. They could not enter, as only the being who wished to see his or her future was allowed.

His throat tightened as he walked into the darkened passageway of a cave. Rough rock walls surrounded him, sharp stones pricked his soles, and smells of dust and age filled his nostrils. It was akin to a holy place, had they not been demons.

He turned a corner and came to a stop in the doorway of a small, round chamber. The walls were white and as smooth as polished marble. On the floor at the center of the room was a circular mosaic depicting the gods and goddesses of the four elements—fire, air, earth, water.

Four figures intertwined. The white-bearded god of earth, Eliass, was at the top of the circle, the north. He bore a green seedling in his palms, raising the tiny plant up to feel the warmth of the sun.

The goddess of air, Rusalka, was to the east, a crown of white-gold thorns on her flowing black hair, her pointed ears peeking out of the curls. Her wings spread out behind her and a bird perched on her shoulder.

At the base of the circle, south, was the redheaded god of fire, Haedon. He held both hands up to either side of him, a flame in each palm, a fierce look upon his features.

And then on the west side of the circle was the likeness of the blonde, golden-eyed goddess of water, who tipped her head back as rain fell upon her face. Belisma, his mother.

Aedan sucked in his breath and stepped into the center of the mosaic. Immediately, sensations of cool earth beneath his feet warred with sudden heat warming his legs. A breeze raised his hair from his shoulders and flattened his tunic to his body. It felt as if the welcome caress of water wrapped around him.

His skin tingled as he stared at the smooth, white wall. He forced himself to breathe as he waited for his future to be shown to him.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then the entire room vanished.

He stood on a sandy beach looking out at the ocean. Sunshine warmed his body—a strange sensation. He was an Incubus, never allowed in the sunlight, always relegated to the dark.

Annwn. I must be in the afterlife where my kind go if the gods and goddesses are pleased.

The tightness in his throat increased and his heart pounded in time with the waves against the sand. Of course he would be sent to a place near water. But this...he had not expected such beauty, such vastness.

A cry from a seabird mingled with the roar of the ocean. The scent of salt was heavy enough that he even tasted it on his tongue. To either side of him grew thick green foliage that hugged the small cove.

For the first time in all his centuries of being, he felt alive and free. Free of the constraints of serving the gods and goddesses, and alive with possibilities.

In one moment, he felt joy.

In the next, terror.

Light and joy vanished.

Aedan shouted as he was enveloped in flame, the pain so deep and constant it was as if the flesh was charred from his bones. Bursts of fire lit the darkness while bubbling pools of lava lapped at his feet like the ocean waves had when he had stood on the shore.

With every splash of lava against his ankles and calves, Aedan wanted to cry out. But he ground his teeth and held it in as he searched for some way out of this version of the human hell—

The Realm of the Dead.

Sweat rolled down his face and arms but quickly dried in the searing heat. Shrieks, cries and sobs of other beings in the realm echoed from sharp and sheer volcanic rock. He could make out figures now. Men, women. No doubt some he had sent here himself.

Dear gods and goddesses.

A wave of heat slammed into him, forcing him to drop to his knees in a lava pool. Aedan gave another shout.

Everything vanished.

He was in the Chamber of Futures again, but on his knees.

Every breath Aedan took came hard and fast, and in his mind’s eye he could still see the flames and the tortured souls. His tunic was now damp with his sweat and clung to his body.

When the beating of his heart slowed and his breathing calmed, he stood and straightened to his full height.

His choices had been laid out before him.

Annwn, or the Realm of the Dead.

His choice.

Robbing Ericka Roberts of her soul was the key.

Aedan clenched his fists at his sides and strode from the chamber, nearly running into Jett and Kyne when he entered the Hall of the Lost.

Without speaking to either of them, he turned and headed away from the pair who remained silent.

He needed…he needed his quarters. The stone, the water. He needed to think.

When he reached his quarters, he slammed the door, raked his fingers through his hair again, and looked up at the starry sky. “Gods and goddesses, what is happening?”

A sigh and a breeze whirled through his chamber and he turned to face the direction it came from. Like the reflection of water on a pond, his mother, Belisma, appeared before him along with her scent of fresh water and moss. The goddess of water was as beautiful as a crystal waterfall tumbling into the River of Life.

Surprise sent a jolt down his spine that Belisma had answered his cry. He knelt before the blonde, golden-eyed goddess, and kept his head lowered.

“Rise, Aedan of the Incubae.” Her voice even sounded like water trickling over rocks, like a musical melody.

When his eyes met hers, the beautiful goddess did not smile. “This has never been a battle for the human’s soul, my son. It is a battle for yours. The only way to escape the fires of the Realm of the Dead is to earn half a soul.”