Demon's Caress: Demon Heat, Book 1 (6 page)

It was so good with them. She’d never felt anything like it. And she would never have it again. She would always be alone, always apart from everyone. She was too empty for anything else. It didn’t matter how much evil she’d eradicated or how good a hunter she was. She was still just the shell Shax had left, too afraid to reach outside herself again.

She sucked Kobal harder, shoving her hips back to take Raum deep inside of her. A tear slid down her face as each man pumped into her. She took them into her, driving them to the edge of madness. The feelings were divine, the emotions were frayed and painful, so she focused on the physical gratification. This she could handle. This she could give them. If she wished it were more, that was her own problem.

Groans spilled from both men, and the slender link she allowed with them sparked with erratic power. They were close to orgasm. She could feel it. Their lust fed her own, driving her ever closer to climax. Shivers ran down her skin, and she lost herself in the moment. The taste, the feel, the smell of sex and the power that surged through her, sweeping her along in the wicked, sensual rush of pleasure. Their breathing was ragged pants, and her lungs burned with the need to drag in more oxygen. Her tongue swirled around the head of Kobal’s cock, and then she drew him back into her mouth. Raum’s thrusts into her grew faster and more urgent, the slap of his flesh against hers adding to the carnal symphony.

Fire licked at the corners of her eyes, rippling over her skin. She knew they felt the heat erupting from her when they both shuddered. The tiny bond would have allowed them to experience her spiking needs. Her pussy flexed around Raum’s cock each time he entered her, and she sucked Kobal in long, regular motions. They’d all go over the edge soon, and she wanted them to fall together. It was as close as she’d get to the real thing.

“I need to come.” Kobal’s voice was a low, gritty rasp.
 

Raum’s lightning wrapped around her, arrowing between her legs. That was all it took to shatter her. She moaned, her pussy seizing in one protracted pulse of ecstasy. She closed her eyes, struggling not to burst into actual flames as her control shredded. Her sex clenched in another peak of orgasm every time Raum entered her channel, every time Kobal pushed into her mouth. She was taken, and it was beautiful. She crested again when their power flooded her in a hot wave, and this time they came with her. Their fluids filled her, and she swallowed the salty flavor of Kobal’s come, flicking her tongue over his dick to take every drop of him.

They offered her the bond again, lightning and fire that seemed to merge too easily with hers now, and she bit back a sob. That they’d do that, knowing how broken she was, made her heart turn over. She didn’t even know how to react. They should have pulled back, just as she’d thought they would. She wasn’t an easy woman to deal with, wouldn’t be anyone’s idea of an ideal bondmate, considering her past.

They slid out of her, and she heard them zipping their pants closed, but she stayed where she was, head down, panting, her mind still spinning in circles too dizzying to let her move.

“I’m not giving up on you, Maron.” Raum kissed the back of her shoulder, while Kobal stroked his fingers through her hair.

They helped her to her feet, tugging her clothes back into place for her. When was the last time anyone had done anything to take care of her? Sure, her female partners had watched her back during assignments just as she’d watched theirs, but that was business. This was wholly personal. The way Raum and Kobal touched her had nothing to do with hunting.

Her thoughts whirled, and she had no idea which way was up and which was down anymore. She needed to snap out of it and get her head on straight. They had a hunt coming, which she knew firsthand was never without danger. If one of the men was harmed on this case because she fucked up, she’d never forgive herself.
 

Ever.

She tugged her at the hem of her shirt, smoothing any wrinkles out of her clothing as they stepped off of the elevator. Nodding to the guards outside Samael’s office—a different set than the day before—she let Raum hold the door open for her. She stepped in and saw Samael standing over his desk, one hand braced on the wide surface, the other propped on his hip. His dark brows were drawn together over his eyes.

Thankfully, he looked too distracted to notice that his operatives reeked of sex and sweat.

As she moved closer, she could see pictures spread out over the desktop. It struck her, suddenly, how austere his office was. If her apartment had nothing personal in it, his space was plain old empty. There was a desk, chairs, a laptop, a cell phone, and that was it. She had no idea what his living quarters looked like, but since he was wedded to his job, she knew he spent most of his time here. It showed exactly how focused her boss was on his work and nothing else. No knickknacks, no mementos, nothing.

It was odd. She’d been in here thousands of times, and until Kobal had pointed it out to her, she hadn’t noticed or thought anything of it.

Shaking herself, she focused on the pictures on his desk while her partners drew up next to her to do the same. A man was featured in every shot, walking out of a bar, crossing a street, holstering a gun, slapping a young woman who wore almost nothing. Her breath caught when she saw who Samael had targeted this time.

“What?” Raum set his hand on the small of her back.

She pulled one of the pictures toward her, tapping her nail against the man’s face. “I know him.”

“You’ve tried to catch him before?” Kobal arched his eyebrows, his gaze reflecting surprise, as if it was beyond him that she might have failed to bring down an evil soul. She wanted to kiss him for the sentiment, but refrained. Bad. Idea. She shouldn’t even have let things go as far as they had in the elevator, but there was nothing she could do about that now. Best to keep going forward and stop looking back. She was usually pretty good at that, but the last day had dredged up memories she’d rather forget.

She shrugged and answered Kobal, “Not him. His boss. This guy used to be one of the underbosses for Vito De Luca. Looks like he took over after Lilim and I soul-sucked the big guy.”

“Name?” Raum snagged a couple of pictures and studied them.

Kobal pulled the thick manila file folder toward him and picked it up to read. “Bruno Costa. Former hit man, now crime boss, responsible for the murder of thirty-two people, and an accessory to a couple dozen more. Likes to torture his victims before he finishes them. Forty-six years old, married, no children, diabetic, heart attack waiting to happen.” He snorted. “Well, we can make that happen for him.”

The two men shuffled through the photos and paperwork gathered by Samael’s watchers. There was a suit coat draped across the table—probably swiped from a dry cleaner’s before it was laundered—that would have their target’s essence on it. Maron didn’t need to touch it. She’d been in the same room with him before. She’d sensed the corruption in him, but she couldn’t just snatch any soul she wanted. They had policies, red tape and bureaucracy even in hell. Somehow, she thought humans would be surprised by that.

“If he’s into the same things as Vito, he’s also a drug dealer, pimp, human trafficker and a dozen other nasty kinds of criminal.” She leaned her hip against the desk, going over in her mind a few of the better ways to get in to his office, assuming he used the same one as his boss. Lilim and she had pretended to be prostitutes, but she somehow doubted that would work as well with her current partners.

Raum frowned, picking up the coat to take in Bruno’s essence. “Getting a guy like this alone for long enough to take his soul is a challenge. I’d prefer not to fight off his henchmen.”

“Right.” Kobal sniffed, bending forward to smell the coat. Some demons went by feel, others by smell. She knew which ones they were now and wished she didn’t. She didn’t want to know more about them. It would only make it harder to walk away later.

“Why don’t you ask Maron how she took care of Vito? It might be useful information.” Samael’s voice was deceptively mild as he settled in his chair and steepled his fingers under his chin.
 

It was a test. The perfect test. Would her partners follow her lead in a situation where she had the advantage of previous experience, or would they prove to be just like Shax? Never trusting her fully, always thinking they knew best on any hunt. It would tell her exactly what she needed to know in the one trial run she had with them. No doubt Samael had chosen the case for just that reason. He was a wily bastard, she’d give him that.

Kobal eyes sparkled with mischief. “I would have asked, but it says right here in the file. She faked being a hooker.”

“Are there pictures?” A brief, wicked grin flickered across Raum’s face.

The blond demon’s eyebrows waggled suggestively. “No pictures, but maybe she still has the outfit.”

She grabbed the file from him and smacked him with it. “In your perverted, adolescent dreams.”

“Well, yeah.” He chuckled and fended her off. “I’d still respect you in the morning, I swear.”

The utter sincerity in his voice cracked her up. She knew she shouldn’t laugh because it would just encourage him, but she couldn’t help it. The two of them amused her. She shook her head and sighed. “You’re incorrigible. Can we focus on the job, now?”
 

“Sure, boss lady.” Kobal shrugged and slid his hands in his pockets. “You’ll take point on this assignment, since you’re the one who knows our target. Tell us what we’re doing.”

The right words, sure. But words were easy to say, not as easy to live with in the heat of the moment. She noticed Samael watching the by-play between them with keen interest—and approval—and she wanted to kick him. So, she liked the men he’d picked for her. Or maybe the men had gone to the boss and asked for her. She didn’t know, and she refused to let herself ask. Telling them about her past changed nothing for her just as it changed nothing for them. They were still at an impasse.

“Well, the first thing to do is some recon on his current location—and that of his goon squad.” She dropped the folder to the desk and tucked her hair behind her ear. “Let’s get this show on the road. Samael, you know where to send us.”

“Yep.” He waved his hand, and a roiling, roaring wave of black fire engulfed them.

Chapter Four

They dissolved into nothingness, speeding through the black until they appeared in an alleyway. Half of Kobal’s body was in a dumpster, which was why they always arrived wherever they went as insubstantial shadows. It wasn’t just because they didn’t want humans to see them arrive—the mortals wouldn’t remember it anyway—it was because untangling themselves from the middle of a brick wall or garbage can could take a while. Demons couldn’t die, but that kind of mess would suck. And it might let a target slip from their fingers, which no self-respecting hunter would allow.

“Okay, which way?” Kobal stepped out of the metal bin and materialized.

She drew in a deep breath, widening her senses to let Bruno’s essence come to her. There. He was near. She could sense him. That familiar instinct to hunt her prey flooded her being, a relief after a day of feeling shaken up and tossed around.

Opening the slender bonds that sex had given her with her partners, she sent the information thrumming along those tethers. It felt good to have those ties. She’d sever them the moment they got back to the silo. She quelled any inner protest that might have risen at the thought.
 

This bond with them was no deeper than her bond with Lilim or any of the other partners that came before her. If the excuse rang hollowly in her mind, she ignored it. It didn’t matter how good the sex had been. That meant nothing. She’d had amazing sex before. Maybe not quite that amazing, true, but she’d never had any more trouble walking away from a lover before. At least not since her last male partner. A shudder of self-loathing ran through her.

Striding down the alley, she let her senses carry her in the direction of Bruno. The closer she got, the riper the stench of his darkness became. She swallowed the bile that stung the back of her throat. Even after all these years, that scent reviled her. She’d never gotten used to it, but she’d learned to suppress her reaction. Bruno’s stink was far worse than Norris’s had been, and there was no way she’d entrap something that ugly on her own, even for a few minutes.

She nodded toward a rundown, two-story warehouse, just as Raum and Kobal said, “There.”

“Yep.” The street was largely empty. Only the unsavory elements would stick around this kind of warehouse and factory area after quitting time. Everyone else had already gone home for the day. Which meant the humans that she sensed nearby could become a problem. She noted where those signatures emanated from, hoping none of them got in her way. There was a comfort she didn’t want to acknowledge in having two large, experienced hunters at her back.

Kobal sucked in a deep breath as they slipped behind the warehouse. “There are a lot of them in there. Bodyguards?” He lifted his hands and shrugged. “Crime boss is a job that comes with enemies.”
 

Raum dropped to his haunches and laid his fingertips against the building, closing his eyes, and she felt a pulse of his power dance over her skin. What he was sensing, she didn’t know. His forehead creased, then relaxed. “It’s not paranoia if they really are after you.”
 

He smiled a little when Maron and Kobal snorted. Then he nodded and rose to his feet.
 

“A little ghostly recon, just to be sure we have correct numbers and placement?” Kobal cracked his knuckles, a gleeful grin on his face.

She could feel the adrenaline buzzing through him. The need to take action thrummed along the thin link between them, filling her too. Her muscles tightened and she forced them to relax when she went incorporeal, blending into the night. “I’ll take the second floor, just to make sure nothing’s going to come down on our heads. Raum, you take the bottom floor. Kobal, make sure there’s no one outside to give us any nasty surprises. Be back here in five minutes.”