Chapter Twenty-six
“What happened?”
Caleb demanded, as two mages carefully hauled us over the side of
the car. Caleb had hold of me, but I threw him off and pushed
through to where they were laying Pritkin facedown on the backseat.
“Cassie!”
“It was that last
blast,” I said numbly, staring at him. God, it looked worse from
this angle. Red and black and white all mixed up together, blood
and burnt leather and bone—
“This wasn’t caused
by fire,” someone said.
I didn’t even look up
to see who it was. I was watching them carefully pull away the
remains of his coat. It was spelled to repair itself, but I didn’t
think that would be happening this time. A few filaments were
gamely trying to knit themselves back together, but there wasn’t
enough left to work with. Despite the armor spells woven into it,
almost the entire back of the coat was simply gone, eaten away in
huge, bloody holes with little more than leather “lace” between
them. And the body underneath—
“My God,” someone
said as the remains of the coat were peeled back, taking some of
his flesh along with it. The stars spun dizzyingly around
me.
“Dragon blood,” Caleb
spat, and somebody cursed.
I looked up. “But
that can’t . . . we were nowhere near—”
“It must have spat it
at you before you escaped,” he said roughly. “Get us to Central.
Now!” he ordered the driver.
“He’s not going to
last that long,” one of the other mages argued. “We have medical
staff on the scene. They just arrived—”
“And you think
they’re going to be able to handle this?”
“If they don’t, he’s
gone. I’m telling you, we can’t—”
“Get out,” I said
softly, my eyes on the ruined map of Pritkin’s back.
“And if we try the
emergency unit and they can’t do anything?” Caleb demanded. “We’ll
have lost any chance of—”
“There’s no time for
anything else!”
“I said, get out!” I snarled, pushing at the nearest mage.
“All of you, except for Caleb!”
“What?” the mage
who’d been arguing with the boss, a young Hispanic guy, turned to
look at me. “What are you—”
“If you want him to
live, get the hell out of here!”
“Do it,” Caleb
rasped, watching my face. I don’t know what it looked like. I
didn’t care.
“Drive,” I told
him.
The mages bailed over
the side, taking a protesting Fred along for the ride. Caleb
climbed into the front seat and I bent over Pritkin. The stench of
burnt leather mingled with the metallic tang of blood was bad
enough, but there was something else there, too, something dark,
something wrong.
“Don’t touch him,”
Caleb said harshly. “The stuff’s like acid. You get any on you and
it’ll eat through you, too.”
I ignored him. I
couldn’t do this without touching. I wasn’t sure I could do this at
all. Pritkin was part incubus, which meant he could feed off human
energy, almost like a vampire. It was the part he hated most about
himself, the part that had once resulted in the death of someone he
loved. But it was the only thing that might save him
now.
I’d fed him once
before, in a similar situation, but I’d had one major advantage
then: he’d been conscious and an active participant. I didn’t know
what to do with him out cold. If he’d been a vamp, I’d have opened
a vein for him, held it over his mouth, made him take what his body
desperately needed. But he wasn’t.
And incubi fed only
one way.
I slid down to the
floor by the seat, so that our faces were on a level. And realized
that I had another problem. He was lying on his stomach, his head
turned toward me, and there was precious little undamaged flesh
that I could reach. I ran a hand through his hair, and as always it
was soft, despite the dust and sweat that currently matted
it.
I combed my fingers
through it anyway, before trailing them over his equally dirty
brow, down the too-large nose, across the too-thin lips. He hadn’t
shaved today, maybe not yesterday, either, and the bristles rubbed
my fingers as I smoothed over his cheeks, his jaw. My hand began to
tremble as I reached his chin. The adrenaline that had kept me
going for the past half hour was wearing off, but that wasn’t the
only reason my hand was shaking. Part of it was fear for Pitkin,
but part of it—
Part of it was fear
of him.
I’d only seen him
feed the one time, and he’d been oh, so careful. And with cause.
The power he possessed could not just take some of a person’s
energy; it could take all of it. Not that he would, not if he was
awake and in his right mind and able to think clearly. But he
wasn’t now. And while I’d never seen an incubus drain someone, I’d
seen master vampires when they were seriously injured, seen what
they left behind when they—
I cut off, breathing
hard. Panic and exhaustion vied to put me down for the count, but I
pushed them away angrily, along with my stupid, stupid cowardice.
Pritkin would risk it for me. He’d do it for
me.
I bent and found his
lips with my own.
The kiss, if you
could call it that, tasted like dust and ashes. I felt his breath
on my face, faint and warm, but nothing else. There was no response
at all.
I pulled off my tank
top and unhooked my bra.
“What the hell are
you doing?” Caleb demanded. “I told you not to touch—”
“Caleb. Whatever you
see, whatever you hear, you forget,” I said harshly. “That’s an
order.”
“Have you gone
completely—”
“And here’s another
one. Shut up.”
I picked up Pritkin’s
hand, limp and lifeless but so familiar. I knew every bump, every
callus, every line. These hands were the ones that had taught me
the right way to hold a gun, that had corrected my stance in
martial arts, that had done their best to teach me to throw a
proper punch. And for a few, brief moments once, they had held me
in passion.
I really, really
hoped some part of him remembered that now.
I held his hand to my
breast and kissed him again.
There was still no
response, at least not from him, but I felt something, a brief
tremor of sensation when his calluses dragged over sensitive flesh.
Incubi raised lust in their partners because it was how they tapped
into human energy. It was the conduit they used to feed, as blood
was for vamps.
But if my brief
sensation awakened anything in Pritkin, I saw no sign of
it.
It didn’t help that
I’d never felt less sexy in my life. It wasn’t the dirt or the
exhaustion or the audience, although that sure as hell didn’t help.
It wasn’t even the blood. Mostly it was the panic. The growing
certainty that I was going to lose him if I couldn’t do this made
it that much less likely that I could.
“If you can hear me,
stop being a stubborn son of a bitch,” I whispered desperately.
“Help me.”
I didn’t get a
response, and we were running out of time. I could see it in the
pallor of his face, hear it in the shallowness of his breath, sense
it in some undefined way I couldn’t have named, but knew just the
same. Tears of frustration welled in my eyes as I kissed him again,
pushing it deeper, willing him to feel something, anything—
“That has to be the
most pathetic display I have ever seen,” someone said, and my head
jerked up. Because it hadn’t been Caleb’s voice.
I stared up at the
glimmering outline of a man shot through with stars, perched
casually on the back of the seat. He was barely visible against the
night, but then we slipped into a ley line and the jumping blue
energy bent around a familiar set of features. They were the same
ones as on the body I held, but they looked so very different with
that particular mind behind them.
“Rosier,” I spat,
feeling my flesh crawl.
“What?” Caleb asked,
and since he was still driving and not lunging over the seat with
weapon drawn, I assumed he couldn’t see the demon who had somehow
hitched a ride.
“I told you; just
ignore everything,” I said roughly, as the deadly creature bent
over his son. “Don’t hurt him!”
“Hurt who?” Caleb
asked, confused.
“Just drive!” I
snapped, trying to push Rosier away. He had a body when he chose,
but he obviously wasn’t using it tonight. Because he was as
insubstantial as a column of mist, and my hand went right on
through.
“It seems you’ve done
well enough on that score yourself,” Rosier said drily. “I always
said you’d be the death of him.”
I felt tears welling
up, of frustration, of anger and of mind-numbing fear. It made it
hard to think, hard to breathe. Because he was right. I should have
stayed in the damn hotel suite, should never have left it. This was
my fault, completely and utterly, as much as if I’d put a gun to
Pritkin’s head. He was going to die and I couldn’t help him, and I
was going to have to sit here and watch it happen—
Just like
Eugenie.
The very thought
paralyzed me in horror. “No,” I whispered.
“Why are you sitting
there, blubbering?” the demon demanded. “We’ve work to
do.”
I looked up to find
the pale outline more blurred than before, and forced myself to
focus. I dashed angry tears away. “Why should I believe you want to
help him? You tried to kill him!”
“Him, no. I tried to
kill you, if you’ll recall.”
“You sent the damn
Rakshasas after him!”
Rosier shrugged, as
if sending a hit squad of soulless demons after his own son was a
minor issue. “They were meant as a scare tactic—they couldn’t touch
him while he was alive, after all.”
“They touched him
plenty!”
“Only because you
insisted on pulling him outside of his body. But do let’s discuss
this while he finishes slipping the mortal coil, shall
we?”
I stared at Rosier,
the hateful, lying, deceitful bastard that he was, and just didn’t
know. Pritkin hated his father, and while I didn’t know all his
reasons, I assumed they were good ones; I had plenty of my own.
Trusting him now—
“My dear girl,” he
said, with a patient drawl in his voice. “If I wanted him dead, why
would I be here at all? A few more minutes in your tender care
should take care of things, with no interference from
me.”
And he was right.
Despicable as he was, he was right. I was sitting here mourning the
man, and he wasn’t even dead yet. But he would be, would be very
soon, if I didn’t get my shit together, if I didn’t figure
something out. I pushed at Pritkin’s inert body, trying to turn him
on his side, to gain more access, but he was heavy and I didn’t see
how this was going to—
“Oh, for the love
of—What he sees in you, I will never
know,” the demon said, in evident amazement.
“What do I do?” I
asked frantically.
“If you want someone
to eat, you must first prepare the meal. And he is hardly in a
position to do it for you. Here,” he said, with a sigh. “Let Daddy
help.”
And without warning,
something snapped in the air around us. It felt like an electric
current, only softer, warmer, infinitely more enticing. It pulsed
through me like a wave, making my skin flush, my nipples peak and
my heart beat harder in my throat. I stopped pushing on Pritkin and
curled up next to him instead, sighing as my hands slid into the
front of his coat, seeking warmth, seeking skin.
I slipped them under
his T-shirt, feeling hard muscle and soft hair, and kissed his
neck. That didn’t get me anywhere, but when I gently bit the knob
of his Adam’s apple, I felt it bob faintly under my lips. So I did
it again, before moving up to take his lower lip between mine. It
gave under my teeth, a damp, swollen heat, and somebody moaned, but
I wasn’t sure which of us it was. I didn’t care.
Except about one
thing. There were too many straps and buckles and obstacles in the
way. There were holsters and belts and vials and guns, when I
craved skin on skin.
But that wasn’t a
problem for long. I watched in bemused fascination as a buckle on
his shoulder slid out of its loop all on its own, the little prong
popping loose from its leather jail , before the whole thing
slithered to the floor. The same was happening with the belt around
his waist, which turned loose and then jerked out from under him,
tossing itself into the front seat. And then the zipper on his
jeans slid open, as if an invisible finger was pushing it
down.
I don’t remember much
of the next few minutes. Everything went fuzzy, a warm, golden haze
that caught the seconds, stretching them like taffy. I do remember
a man’s chest, hard muscle under my hand, a sweeping ladder of
ribs, the smooth rise of a hip . . . and Pritkin jerking back, his
breathing heavy, his jaw like iron.
His weapons were
gone, and most of his shirt, too, although, oddly, he still wore
one arm of his coat. The jeans were also still in place, but they
were sagging in front, showing off a ridged abdomen and a light
brown treasure trail. I pushed at them impatiently, got them mostly
off his hips, before a hand grabbed mine and forced it back against
the seat.
“You don’t want
this,” he told me harshly.
I didn’t say
anything; I couldn’t think clearly enough to put into words just
how wrong he was. I’d never wanted anything more in my
life.
I slid the other hand
behind his neck, tried to pull him down to me, only to have the
same thing happen. My other hand hit the seat, trapped in his as
securely as in a manacle. Pritkin wasn’t touching me otherwise, but
he was right there, bare chest heaving, skin damp and moist, his
one bare arm corded with muscle as he held me against the seat,
helpless.
My body liked that,
liked the fact that his eyes had bled black, with only a thin ring
of emerald fire around the iris. But it liked a lot less that he
was just staying there, wasn’t moving away, but wasn’t coming
closer. It hurt not to touch him, an actual, physical ache, to see
the rivulets sweat had carved down all those muscles, the swirling
patterns it had made in his body hair, and not be able to trace
them with my fingers, with my tongue....
He was saying
something, but I didn’t listen. Didn’t care. My hands were fixed to
the seat, but in holding mine, he’d immobilized his own as well.
And we were close, so very close, that he couldn’t stop me from
winding a leg around him, from arching up to rub my cheek against
the soft fur on his chest, from finding a peaked nipple and
biting—
“Cassie, please . . .” It came out choked, desperate, but to
me it sounded like encouragement.
I bit down a little
harder, and he cried out. I let my tongue lave the small mark I’d
made, and his whole body shook in pleasure. It rippled into me,
banishing the pain, but increasing the hunger. It felt wonderful,
touching this much flesh, feeling his heart beat hard under my
lips. But I wanted more, wanted to feel all that velvet skin on
mine, wanted everything.
And so did he.
Whatever he said, his hunger radiated down through his skin and
into mine, making me cry out, making me crazy. I arched up and his
chest barely brushed my erect nipples, but the shock of pleasure
was intense, overpowering, magnifying the craving by a power of
ten. I writhed against his hold, needing the pressing weight, the fierce cadence of
skin on skin, the—
“Cassie!” A hand
gripped my face, turning my eyes up to his, making me focus. Green
eyes blazed down into mine, no longer black but strangely,
unearthly bright. “You’ve been influenced. Do you understand?
Remember how it felt before?”
A memory tugged at my
mind, but it was vague, uninteresting. I pushed against his hands,
throwing everything I had into it, but it was like fighting a
statue. I cried out in pain and raw, unfulfilled need.
Pritkin cursed, but
not at me. “What did you do to her?”
“What do you think?”
someone laughed. “You know, you really should help the poor
girl.”
“Stay out of this,”
Pritkin snarled, and the tone was enough to send tongues of flame
licking at pleasure points deep inside me. I
whimpered.
“If I had, you’d be
dead,” the other voice commented. “You’re welcome, by the
way.”
He may have said
more, but I didn’t hear. Because those warm hands had released me
to close over my feet, gently sliding off my shoes before smoothing
possessively over my calves. The sensation was exquisite,
torturous, had my whole body jumping like a sensitized nerve
ending. I started to reach out, to touch, to stroke, and
immediately the hands were removed.
“No. Stay
still.”
It was Pritkin’s
voice, the one he used for command, the one I rarely heard but
automatically obeyed. Usually because it meant that bad people with
nasty weapons were aiming them at my head. I didn’t know what the
cause was this time, but I fell back against the seat, breathing
hard. And the hands returned.
Callused palms
brushed the soft undersides of my knees, then slipped around to
warm the outsides of my thighs. They smoothed all the way up my
body, encountering no barriers until they reached the thin material
of my track shorts. Rough skin caught on the smooth nylon as he
slid his hands over my hips, fingers slipping just under the
elastic of the waistband.
They just stayed
there for a moment, and our eyes met in the almost dark. Pritkin’s
held the same fierce, focused intensity they did when he was
bending over me in the training salle, a sword resting hot against
my neck. Only there was something more there tonight, something
fierce and hot and possessive. I was shocked to feel myself start
to tremble.
The feeling
intensified as those big hands slowly spread against my skin. For a
dizzying moment of clarity, I could feel everything: the fingers
smoothing over the line of stitching running up each side of the
shorts, the faint scratch of the tag against my skin, the
sweat-damp material sticking to the small of my back. And then
those hands began smoothing, oh, so slowly, back down my body. And
they took the shorts with them.
I heard myself make a
sound, nothing I recognized. And then time seemed to slow again,
going soft and liquid. To the point that I could feel every inch of
the thin, silky material as it skimmed over my belly button, glided
past my hips, drifted across my pelvic bones and then stroked down
my thighs.
Somewhere along the
line, a spiraling, falling feeling took over my head, banishing any
kind of rational thought. I didn’t fight it. It was something I
needed badly—something that let me forget what we were and where we
were, and all the reasons why this was a very, very bad
idea.
The silky cloth
brushed over my feet as he pulled it completely away from my body.
He never said a word. But as I lay there, bare except for a brief
thong, I slowly realized that he was shaking. The tremors were
almost imperceptible, as controlled as everything else about him.
But I felt them.
I tried to tell him
it was all right, that I trusted him, that this wouldn’t change
anything. But then warm hands found my skin again and slid up my
legs. And all I could manage was a low sound, deep in my throat, as
he slowly pressed my thighs apart.
He bent his head, not
hurrying, but with an intensity on his face that made my brain
start to short-circuit. Warm breath ghosted over me as he tracked
up my body, pausing here and there for long seconds, as if
breathing me in. But never stopping, never touching. His lips were millimeters from my flushed
skin, so close that every breath raised goose bumps. And that’s
where they stayed, until I thought I would scream.
I wanted to touch
him; I needed to move. But I couldn’t
seem to do anything but writhe in helpless counterpoint to that
merciless nonassault. Within seconds, I was biting my tongue to
hold back something perilously close to a whimper. Then those hands
slid up my sides and that mouth finally made contact, closing on
the tender flesh just above the bow on my thong.
I gasped at the warm,
wet sensation, so different from the feel of hands. And suddenly it
was much easier to lie still, my whole body going heavy and
languid. I sank back, surrendering to the weight that settled
between my legs, the cool feel of his hair and the shockingly
intimate caress of lips and tongue on sensitive skin. Satisfying a
monthsold craving, I laced my fingers deep into the soft mane,
feeling his head move under my hands.
The tender mouth went
on to feast on my thighs, drawing another sound of startled
pleasure from deep within me, a sound that turned to a groan when
the hot tongue found the crease where thigh met hip. It made me
want to touch him again, to flow against him like water, to slide
along that muscled warmth and return pleasure for
pleasure—
“Stop,” he said
mildly, nipping lightly at my hipbone. And my body reacted with a
sweet, surprised rush.
He slowly tracked
across my skin until I melted, becoming a malleable creature of
pure response as the warm, wet onslaught moved over my hips, my
stomach and then lower. His tongue ran around the top of the thong,
tracing the lace, catching on the small satin bow. I couldn’t see
what he was doing; his head was in the way. But I felt it when a
warm mouth closed over that small scrap of material, brushing my
skin as he started tracking back down my body. And pulled it off
with his teeth.
I stared at him
blankly for a moment. All my fantasies, and still I’d never
guessed, never known that this man
simmered all the time below those grumpy looks, that stubbornset
jaw and stiff-necked control. Or maybe some part of me had known,
and known the risk....
And then I couldn’t
watch him anymore. I lay back against the seat, panting, as I was
stripped bare to the warm night’s breeze. Rosier was gone, or at
least I couldn’t see him. I couldn’t see Caleb, either, because of
the seat back, but wasn’t sure if the opposite was true. At the
moment, I didn’t care. I didn’t care about anything but the golden
head now working its way back up my body.
He was drawing light
patterns with his lips, his tongue, runes and symbols I was too far
gone to read but that burned through my skin. The sensation was so
intense, so overwhelming, that it felt like my body couldn’t
contain it. He stopped at a point where, had I been wearing
panties, he would have been below them, feasting on skin I’d just
waxed a few days ago. But he wasn’t low enough, not even close, and
that all-consuming need was building again.
I sank my hands into
his hair, trying to direct that head to where I so needed it to be.
But he ignored me, continuing to nuzzle softly against my flesh
with that same deceptive gentleness. Until a stab of longing tore
through me, so strong that I thought the emptiness might kill me if
it went on much longer.
I did whimper then, a
ragged, involuntary moan that didn’t even sound like me. It would
have been embarrassing if I’d been capable of caring about such
things. But I wasn’t and I didn’t, not about that, not about
anything but the almost unbearable intensity of need. I gasped out
his name on a sob.
And finally,
finally, he dropped that last inch.
Warm lips closed over me, a wet tongue circled me. And a fierce,
spiraling ache of need shot down every nerve I possessed.
There. Oh, there, yes,
there.
A faint shudder ran
through him and his breath caught audibly. “Yes,” he hissed, so soft it might have been my own
imagination. But the hands on my hips tightened convulsively, and
that tongue became demanding, forcing me open, learning me
intimately, discovering what I needed.
And then I couldn’t
think anymore. It was sensory overload, hearing the sounds he made
deep in his throat, smelling that peculiar mix of sweat and
gunpowder and magic that may as well have been his signature
cologne, feeling the assault of that mouth, all wet, silken heat
and fiery passion, nothing safe, nothing sane—
And then he gently
bit down.
And oh, dear
God.
Pleasure racked me, a
deep, primal shudder of response followed swiftly by a surge of
pure, molten lust. The rush of heat started in my belly and swept
outward in an unexpected, uncontrollable wave, the raw force of it
wrenching a cry from my throat. Merciless, he sucked me deeper and
did it again. And my body simply couldn’t take any
more.
Ecstatic release
flashed like chain lightning through my lungs and thighs and every
place in between, right down to my toes. It rippled into Pritkin,
tightening his hands, causing his fingers to dig into my flesh. And
the sound he made, deep and vulnerable and desperate, made my body
shudder harder, as if trying to come again even in the middle of
mind-shattering release.
“God—” I heard myself
choke, and didn’t know if it was a plea for mercy or a prayer of
thanks.
When it was finally
over, I clung to the heavily muscled body, the skin fever hot with
the thrum of magic pulsing just under the surface, gasping. A hand
crushed my head to his chest, fingers tangling in my hair. I didn’t
even try to move; didn’t think I could. I just stayed there,
listening to his heartbeat pound strong and sure, if a little
erratically, under my ear.
And then the car
touched down, bumping asphalt, somewhere outside
Vegas.