Chapter Fourteen
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Nox
He was trying to play it down for me as we trekked through the woods, but Daemon was nervous.
Whether that was for himself, for me, for the mission, or all three, was anyone’s guess.
I stuck close to him, heeding his warning about stray demons potentially lurking around.
Apparently, Daemon could sense the Hellmouth. Much like, I guess, I could sense the magic in the cave. All I felt was the chill; all I could hear was the crunch of our feet on the underbrush.
“What’s—“ I started, ramming right into Daemon when he stopped suddenly.
We must have made it.
Taking a deep breath, I stepped to the side to see what Daemon was looking at.
I wasn’t sure what I expected. A hole in the ground leading to the Underworld, maybe.
I hadn’t anticipated what was in front of us.
Arms and legs and entrails and, oh, God , a head, strewn about.
The smell of blood and decay met my nose, making my stomach twist and bile rush up my throat.
Daemon moved so fast, twisting around, slapping a hand over my mouth, and pushing me against a tree. “Don’t. Don’t, ” he added in a softer voice. Then, in a whisper, “he’s still here.”
Panic gripped my system, chasing away the sickness in my stomach, making me feel like I was vibrating.
My pulse was pounding in my ears, but I tried to focus past it, to hear or see what Daemon was picking up on.
“Shadow. Now,” he said.
Then, just as I pulled my shadow cloak around me, a giant figure appeared out of the trees.
This, this was what you thought of when you imagined a demon. Not Daemon’s gorgeous human body with sexy little horns and a forked tongue.
This creature was red-skinned, with long, sharp tusks, double sets of horns—one set short and small, the others long and curling—with horrific, bright red, glowing eyes.
He was slightly taller than Daemon, but much wider. And the sound that escaped him was less of a growl and more like distant screaming. Like a chorus of voices crying in pain.
His victims, maybe?
My gaze slid over to the carnage on the ground. I didn’t want to look, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself.
The young man’s eyes were still wide open with shock and fear. I prayed for his sake that all of the dismemberment had happened after he was already dead.
The screaming sound intensified as the demon stomped a foot on the ground, looking ready to charge Daemon like a bull.
But then, another sound joined the screaming.
This, though, was a deafening roar, something primal and terrifying.
When I found the source, my breath caught.
Because it was coming from Daemon. Only he wasn’t the same Daemon anymore.
The horns I’d felt protruding from his scalp had extended to their full glory. His fingers elongated, stretched down to lethally sharp talons.
It was absolutely insane, but I felt my sex clench at the sight of him.
I was still trying to wrap my head around that reaction when he charged forward, the movement so fast that he blurred.
One second, he was there.
The next, he was in front of the other demon, his arm whipping out, those talons of his tearing across the throat of the beast.
Daemon was still roaring.
But the only sound from the beast was a sick sort of gurgling as he choked on his own blood.
Daemon turned back, his eyes flecked red in his intense face.
I let the shadow fall away as he walked toward me. Each step sent another unexpected wave of need through me.
Then he was right in front of me, grabbing me, turning me. His talons bit into my clothes. They scraped my skin as he yanked down my pants and panties, and I felt the burn of cuts down my thighs.
But all I felt was another rush of need. I was impossibly wet, the ache in my core becoming unbearable.
Not that I needed to bear it for long.
Daemon’s hands were on my hips in seconds, yanking them out toward him.
I felt the hardness of him just a second before he slammed deep inside.
My cries filled the woods at the delicious, brutal intensity.
He was more beast than man right then, fucking me so hard that I needed to wrap my hands around the tree trunk to keep from being fucked into the hard bark over and over.
The sounds that escaped him were those same demonic growls, sounds that had my belly going liquid, that had my walls tightening around him as an orgasm tore through me.
But he didn’t slow.
He didn’t stop.
He fucked me through it, then fucked me harder, deeper, driving one orgasm, then another into two as my moans became screams in the quiet woods.
Only when my legs got too weak from the climaxes, from trying to hold myself up as he fucked me, did he finally surge deep and come with another roar, his whole body jolting hard.
My whole body was trembling after, and I was sure I would have fallen on all fours to the forest floor if Daemon’s hands hadn’t been gripping my hips.
Slowly, the talons that were nipping into my skin receded, leaving just his fingers there.
He reached to pull me back against him, his arm anchored around my chest and lower stomach.
“I could smell your desire when you were looking at my Change,” Daemon said, his warm breath on my ear. “You were so wet for me.”
“Yes,” I admitted. There was no use denying it. Without a second of foreplay, I’d been drenched for him when he’d surged into me.
“You’re gonna be dripping the whole time we’re down there then,” he told me, lips pressing into my neck. “I’ll probably be more beast than man down there.”
“I’ll try not to climb you like a tree,” I said, getting a laugh out of him as he reached down, pulling my pants and panties back into place.
“Can’t think of anything I want less than you holding back from fucking me,” he said, reaching for my hand. “We’re almost there. Can’t you feel the heat?”
Suddenly, I could. And as we walked along, it only got warmer and warmer. It was the most comfortable I’d felt since Daemon and I were naked and close, sharing his heat.
“You want to leave a layer or two out here?” he asked as I actually felt sweat bead up on my brow.
“When we get to the… oh,” I said as we rounded some thick hedges to find the Hellmouth.
I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but a giant, gaping hole full of rubble wasn’t it.
“How… how do we get down?”
“You’re not gonna like this part,” Daemon said, glancing over at me.
“Oh, God. We jump, don’t we?”
“Well, we climb. Until we jump. Or, rather, I climb and I jump. You’re piggybacking, so I make sure I don’t lose you.”
That was… not a promising start. But, I mean, we were going into hell , so what was I expecting? A nice, well-maintained staircase?
“How do we know if I can go in?” I asked.
“You would feel it starting to repel you,” Daemon said, pulling me closer.
Save for the heat, I felt nothing.
“No?” he asked.
“No.”
“Okay then,” he said, unzipping my jacket, then pulling it off of me, balling it up, and wedging it under some nearby bushes. “Are you ready for this?”
“No,” I admitted, but I reached for his shoulders, waiting for him to duck down so I could climb on. “But let’s get it over with.”
We both sucked in a deep breath in unison.
“Tight, sweetness. Like you never wanna let me go.”
The crazy thing, as I wrapped him up with arms and legs, was… I was pretty sure I never wanted to do that. Let him go.
In such a short time, he’d come to mean a lot more than I could have expected.
He was nothing like anyone I’d ever met. He’d single-handedly broken any stereotypes I may have had about demons. Who were, supposedly, evil. Yet he’d been nothing but kind and selfless with me.
And the sex.
Holy hell, the sex.
I’d never experienced anything like it. Like it consumed me, like it ripped me from my very foundations, leaving me in rubble. In the best way possible.
I was so distracted by my thoughts that I didn’t even notice the journey until the inevitable drop that had my belly swooping.
Daemon landed with a small grunt, one knee on the ground, breathing heavily.
Slowly, my eyelids fluttered open and, well, it was nothing like I expected.
“Um…” I said, slowly sliding off of Daemon’s back, turning in a circle as I took in… one of the prettiest places I’d ever seen.
Lush green was below our feet; fields of flowers stood proudly in the distance; and a beautiful river shimmered before us.
“Elysian Fields,” Daemon said, turning to watch me, his head tucked to the side.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “You hated it here?”
“No. No, I hated it in Hell. The other hell. You know, brimstone and metal rods through the eyes. That Hell. This is the Underworld. Hades Underworld.”
Right.
In the Greek myths, all the dead went to the Underworld. And based on your goodness—or wickedness—you went to a different part of the Underworld.
The Elysian Fields were reserved for the most heroic or good humans. Those who dedicated their lives to serving others, who fought to protect their fellow man.
The average, everyday normal human ended up in the Asphodel Meadows, considered a lovely place to spend eternity, if not as nice as the Elysian Fields.
Then, of course, there was the place where the wicked went.
“So, your old home would now be… Tartarus.”
“Yep. Can practically hear the screams and smell the burning flesh from here,” he said, a dark look in his eyes.
“So, was this always here?” I asked. “When… when you were here?”
“No. This was all… gone. Or closed up. I won’t pretend to understand how it happened. I’m not that smart,” he admitted with a little shrug. “When Lucy got kicked out, Hades either opened this all back up or recreated it, I guess.”
“So… if all souls go here, but the other God…”
“Yeah, not sure how that all shakes out,” Daemon said. “I guess they all battle over the souls of the humans. Some get brought down here. Some go up to the sky. Who knows. I just gotta figure out where the fuck this river is now…”
“If I remember a map I saw correctly… it’s close to Hades’s palace.
“Great,” Daemon said, wincing. “Well, let’s try to be fast then, yeah?” he asked. “Since we’re stealing from him.”
“Right,” I agreed, taking the hand he offered me. “Which way is north from here?” I asked.
Daemon pointed.
“Then we go that way,” I told him.
It was all so… strangely normal. To walk hand-in-hand with a man I was really starting to like next to a lovely river, the sweet sounds of bird calls lilting from the trees.
“Want to go visit your mom?” Daemon asked after a long, silent walk. Glancing over, I saw him nodding in the distance.
Turning, I saw the brightness disappear, all the color draining into darkness.
I felt an unexpected tug, some part of me actually really wanting to go, to see the woman who had so enchanted my father, who had loved me enough to bring me to safety, even though it must have been difficult for her.
If the human world wasn’t literally hanging in the balance, maybe I would have considered it.
As it was, there was no time for sentimental reunions.
“Some other time,” I said, starting to walk again.
Daemon squeezed my hand, seeming to sense my inner battle but also understanding my determination to get what we needed and get back out.
“We need to cross here,” Daemon said when we realized we were surrounded on all sides by rivers, but none of them offering what we needed. “Want a ride?” he asked, bending down again.
I wanted to say I could walk. But my bones were starting to ache again, that familiar feeling of ‘unwell’ settling upon me once more.
So I climbed on as he waded into the waist-high water, only putting me down on the other side when he was sure there were no threats.
“Wow,” I said, figuring we were in the Asphodel Meadows, the place where most of the dead spirits resided. “Hey, are those… poppies?” I asked, pointing toward some red I saw dancing in a breeze in the distance.
“Think they might be,” Daemon said as we started to walk again. “We could just take those. Save us the rest of the trip.”
He was still antsy to get out of the Underworld, even though this was more of a paradise than the hell he’d escaped from.
“You’re worried about Hades, aren’t you?”
“Well, he’s not exactly known as a kind and forgiving god,” Daemon said. “And we’re about to steal from him. I figure… the closer to an exit we are, the better.”
“How do we get back up?” I asked. “Since there was a drop,” I added.
“There was a tree right beside the hole. I figure I can climb it then… hope for the best,” he said, grimacing.
“Well, it’s good to know we have such a rock-solid plan,” I said, smiling. “Let’s take the poppies then,” I agreed, and we both turned in their direction.
“It’s beautiful,” I said when we were standing at the edge of the poppy field.
“Yeah,” he agreed, but his gaze was on me, making my belly flip-flop.
“Focus,” I demanded, even if my heart wanted nothing more than for him to keep saying sweet things.
“Fiiiine,” he grumbled, making a little laugh escape me. “Now, they might be pretty, but maybe we shouldn’t be touching them with our bare hands. Don’t need to be tripping balls as unwelcome guests in the Underworld.”
I was reasonably sure, given that I had a power with sleep myself, that the poppies wouldn’t affect me the same as they would someone else. But I wasn’t taking any chances with Tartarus hanging overhead as a possible punishment. A place that made Daemon, a demon from Hell, look a little pale.
“Here,” Daemon said, finding a sharp rock. “I’ll use this to cut them. You take off one of your shirts to tie them all up in, so we don’t accidentally touch them.”
That was just what we did, working tirelessly until the entire sweatshirt was full of pretty red flowers.
Then I watched as Daemon carefully wrapped them up.
It wasn’t until we were done that it happened.
The ground below our feet started to crack, to fall inward. A sinkhole of sorts.
Only I had a feeling this wasn’t some natural phenomenon. But, rather, it was punishment for theft.
“We run. Now,” Daemon said, grabbing my hand and taking off at a sprint.
I tried to keep up, forcing my aching legs to keep going, even as the ground grew even more uneven, cracking and caving beneath our feet, leaving me stumbling and tripping over stones.
Sensing I was losing the battle with my stupid, useless body, Daemon twisted and swept me into his arms, barely losing a step.
“Fucking not the time,” he said as I felt a familiar tightening in my core. But his voice was a mix of amused and frustrated. Like he wanted nothing more than to stop and ease some of the growing ache.
“I can’t help it,” I confessed, snuggling into him, loving the way his arms instinctively tightened.
I wanted the ground to grow solid again, so Daemon could slam me back against one of the lovely trees around us, strip off my pants, and surge inside me.
I never imagined having a fantasy for fucking in the Underworld. But there was no stopping it, either.
Somewhere behind us, a sound started that had a shiver moving down my spine.
A growling.
A growling in the Underworld.
I mean, sure, maybe it was just another flesh-eating demon. But it could also be, you know, a freaking three-headed demon dog.
A growl moved through Daemon in response, and I could feel his talons elongating, biting into my flesh.
Which, yeah, wasn’t helping the whole attraction thing.
I, apparently, had a thing for his wicked side.
“Wrap me up,” Daemon said, pressing the shirt with the poppies between us as I turned in his arms, wrapping my arms and legs around him just before he jumped up, grabbing the lower limb of the tree and hauling us up.
I didn’t mean to look down.
But with my head over his shoulder, there was really nowhere else to look.
There, lunging up at us from the ground, was Cerberus. The three-headed dog. And each one of those heads had a mouth full of razor-sharp, impossibly long teeth. And each of those jaws was snapping at us, hot saliva flying from their canines, burning anything it touched.
“Daemon!” I shrieked, clutching him tighter.
He said nothing, just hauled us up onto the next branch, then the next.
My belly was flip-flopping as Cerberus kept leaping, jumping impossibly high. High enough that I could feel the heat of his breath, could smell the strange, burning scent of his body.
There was a growing tension in Daemon’s body that had my nerves jangling together, worrying we were out of tree, that we weren’t going to get out of here. That by trying to do good for the humans, I would end up tortured for eternity by demons.
“This is the part where, if I could pray, I would,” Daemon said.
Then, before I could let the anxiety surge through me, he was leaping, propelling us through the air.
We landed hard on a narrow, crumbling ledge just below the hole that fed up through the Hellmouth.
“Can he follow us?” I asked as Daemon tried to reach toward the hole.
“I don’t think so,” he told me. “But we’re just gonna run like hell back to the car, just in case.”
With that, he jumped.
I could feel the tension in all of his muscles as he dragged not only his but my weight through the hole.
Sweat was soaking through his shirt, the scent of—something smoky and pleasant, like a campfire—making that desire ratchet back up as he ran through the tunnel toward the mouth of it.
The cold nipped at my skin when we finally broke through to the human plane.
But we didn’t dare stop.
Not even to fetch my jacket we’d discarded before heading down to the Underworld.
But I wasn’t complaining, not when I was sure the devil dog wasn’t chasing us anymore.
We’d done it.
We’d gone down into the Underworld. We’d stolen the poppies.
We were going to save my sister.
And, with her, maybe all of humankind.
But there was no time to revel in that victory.
Not as Daemon got us to the car, set me on my feet, tossed the shirt with the poppies into the backseat, then grabbed my remaining shirts and yanked them over my head.
“What are you doing?” I yelped as the cold nipped at my skin.
“Your pussy has been dripping for me since the Underworld,” he said. There was no denying that. His hands grabbed my pants and panties, then yanked them down and off, leaving me completely naked before him.
He turned, slid into the car seat, reached down to free his cock, and fisted it as he looked at me with those red-flecked eyes.
“Get in here and ride my cock, shadow girl.”