Chapter 26
Quinn
Iadjusted the leather belt around my waist, making sure it didn’t dig into the still slightly tender spot above my hip where my wound had mostly healed. I wanted to balance the pouches that held my crossbow ammo on either side so they didn’t throw off my equilibrium if I needed to move quickly.
Never had I been more grateful for the reflexes I’d honed wandering around abandoned and supposedly inaccessible urban terrain for the past several years.
And hurray for shadowkind healing powers too. I doubted I’d have been feeling anywhere near as limber as I did with regular human medical treatment rather than Lance’s supernatural breath and tongue. Other than when I got the occasional twinges of pain, I could mostly forget I’d been sliced wide open a week ago.
I took a stroll around the apartment’s bedroom, getting comfortable with the belt on. In just a few hours, I was supposed to make my debut at the old factory-building-turned-monster-trap that Rollick’s people had just put the finishing touches on.
We didn’t know if the villainous duo would turn up right away. It could be a while before they came hunting me. But my men had noticed other beings spying on the area from the shadows. Rollick had been careful to ensure they’d get no glimpse of what was going on inside the building, but they knew we were up to something big there. The two sorcerer-killers would hear the moment I was seen entering.
Hopefully I wouldn’t need to shoot them or any other beings anyway. Hopefully I’d be able to dash out via the trap’s human escape route before I was in any significant danger. But I intended to go in prepared for worst case scenarios, and my men definitely hadn’t been arguing about that. Although they’d have preferred if I hadn’t needed to be there at all.
It’d been hard enough staying hidden and recovering when I knew the duo’s minions were still out there attacking more humans across the city every night, when they were conducting more sacrifices at the rift for who knew what awful purpose. But getting spotted and cut down before the plan was ready might have doomed so many more people.
My men had been intervening and preventing the attacks as much as they could, both to reduce the carnage and to put the pressure on our enemies. The behemoth and the leviathan needed to believe that me and my “army” of shadowkind posed a real threat to their plans.
I undid the belt bucket and set it on the armchair in the corner, thinking I might lie down for a bit to settle my nerves before it was time to go. But before I’d made it to the bed, a jolt of intense emotion that wasn’t mine socked me in the chest.
It was a sharp, ragged burst of anger. My head jerked toward the door, knowing that if I was picking up on Rollick’s inner state, especially this intensely, he had to be nearby. I hadn’t realized he’d gotten back to the apartment, but shadowkind didn’t typically make a whole lot of noise with their comings and goings.
Had our plan been ruined somehow? Had something happened to one of the other men? I pushed past the door and hurried into the living room.
“What’s going on?” I demanded the moment I spotted Rollick standing by the sofa, his back to me. “What’s wrong?”
Rollick turned slowly, revealing his phone clutched in his hand. His grip was loosening, but his knuckles were pale as if he’d been gripping it tightly a second ago. He’d composed his expression into casual bemusement, his eyebrows arching with a quizzical look. “What makes you so sure that something’s wrong?”
“I—I just had a feeling.” I tipped my head toward his phone. “Did you get some bad news? Is everyone okay?”
“The three mutinists you’re so enamored with are just fine,” Rollick said, still studying me. “And ‘just having a feeling’ doesn’t explain why you burst into the room like the place was on fire. You’re not the type to jump at, well, shadows. Something set you off. I think you’d better tell me what.”
I swallowed thickly. If I’d realized that revealing my concern would take us down this path, I would have reined myself in, pretended to only notice something might be bothering the demon after I’d greeted him.
But then, maybe he deserved to know. A flicker of guilt rippled through my gut at the thought of how long I’d been hiding our connection from him. Of course, he’d forced it on me in the first place. But I understood why. And I no longer saw him as someone I’d need a secret advantage against.
We were on the same side in every possible way now.
I couldn’t help folding my arms over my chest in a defensive stance as if to ward off any criticism. “I—When you fed me your essence, I started sensing how you were feeling. It faded afterward, but with any strong emotions, if you’re nearby, I still get a taste of them. And just now you were feeling very angry about something.”
Rollick blinked at me. He kept his expression nonchalant, but he couldn’t obscure the tremor of uneasiness my revelation had stirred up. It wasn’t surprising he’d react like that—I’d known him for long enough to realize how much he prized his ability to hold his cards close. It couldn’t sit well with him that I had a direct inside line to his deepest feelings.
“Well,” he said. “I thought the sharing of energies might encourage some sort of bond of trust, but I’ll admit that wasn’t exactly what I had in mind. I guess I should be glad that you haven’t picked up on anything that’s sent you running for the hills all over again.”
He didn’t even ask why I hadn’t told him right away. Maybe that was as obvious as his own preference for discretion. I wet my lips and dared to press the point. “So what were you angry about? What’s the matter?”
For a few seconds, I thought he might not answer. Then he sighed and glanced at his phone before stuffing it into his pocket. “The bastards know that I’m still helping you. They’re clearly peeved about that fact. I just got word that they’ve completely destroyed the Sunshine Sin Hotel.”
His hotel here in LA—the one where I’d stayed for ten days while we started to figure out where we stood with one another. The business he’d set up to help shadowkind enjoy the mortal realm while protecting the mortals they mingled with, the current addition to his millennia-long legacy.
My stomach twisted. Even when I hadn’t trusted Rollick at all, I’d been able to see how much the hotel meant to him. “Destroyed as in…?”
He kept a flippant tone. I didn’t know whether he was trying to convince himself or me—or possibly both of us—that he didn’t really care. “As in reduced to rubble. It was a little damaged after the fight there, but nothing I couldn’t have patched up within a few days. Now I’d have to rebuild it from the ground up.”
My heart sank. “I’m sorry. That was a low blow.”
“They haven’t been the most sportsmanlike of opponents in general. I’m not even really surprised.” Rollick gave a dismissive wave of his hand. “The news disturbed me on first hearing it, but I’ve rebuilt hundreds of times over. I’ll take this as a sign that it was time to set down new roots.”
“You don’t have to pretend to be okay with it,” I said.
“I’m not pretending. When you’ve been alive for thousands of years, it takes a lot to really get under your skin.” He stepped closer, still studying my face. “I’m more interested in the fact that you noticed that a very powerful demon in your presence was enraged, and your first instinct was to come running toward me.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “I knew you wouldn’t hurt me.”
The words spilled out into the air, and it was only as I heard myself saying them that I registered just how momentous they were.
Rollick’s eyes sparked with a rush of pure delight. “Is that so?” he purred, stalking closer, his mouth curving into a sly grin. “Not a single shred of fear left for the mighty demon?”
I gazed back at him with my chin high as he paused just inches away from me, standing nearly a foot taller than my average height. But there was nothing menacing about his loom. The force of his nearness sent a heady tingle all through my veins.
I held myself back from reaching for him to pull him the last short distance to me. “Nope,” I said. “I’ve seen who you are. I know why you do what you do. I know you’d sooner take on the kind of fiends who could challenge the strongest warriors from the shadow realm alone than put me in harm’s way, if you have the choice. What’s there to be afraid of?”
Rollick let out a low chuckle. He brushed his fingertips over my cheeks with the faintest scrape of the claws he’d let loose. “You make me sound so tamed. I do have a reputation to uphold.”
The corner of my own lips quirked upward as my whole body thrummed with anticipation. “I’m not saying you’re not a monster. Only that I know you’ll be one for me, not to me.” Just as I would be for the ones I cared about.
I paused, desire coursing deeper inside me. I could have this now—I could have him. And depending on what happened tonight, I might never get another chance.
I wet my lips and added, “Maybe unless I ask nicely?”
The new light that glinted in the demon’s eyes was all heat. He bowed his head toward mine. “And what are you asking for right now, sweet sorcerer?”
There seemed to be no possible answer other than the words that bubbled up my throat. “Show me what it’s like to be taken by a demon.”
A soft growl escaped Rollick’s throat, and then he was surging forward, his form shifting as he did. He caught me up in arms already bulging with more muscle as his dress shirt fell away, lifting me both with his grasp and the spurt of height that shot him at least another foot taller. His dark eyes glittered at me like embers amid the sharp angles of his ruddy, monstrous face.
He strode into the bedroom so fast the door hinges squealed at the shove and set me down in the middle of the bed. Then he braced himself over me in all his demonic glory, his lips pulling back in a smile that showed off his pointed teeth.
I couldn’t resist the sight of his horns, sprouting in their graceful curves from his temples. As he opened his mouth to speak, I reached up to trace one hand along the smoothly spiraled surface, and Rollick’s breath caught around whatever he’d been going to say. Instead, he leaned in and captured my mouth with a searing kiss.
He had a smoky taste I hadn’t been able to savor quite so intently when he’d joined me with my other men before. I’d been too focused on his outward reactions then. Now, I drank in the flavor of him with every movement of my lips, wanting to get as high on him as I had when he’d fed me his essence. Except this time, I’d have thrown myself into that wild delirium willingly.
I might die a few hours from now or be injured beyond even Lance’s ability to repair. I’d found something strange but wonderful with all of my monstrous men, and I hadn’t really gotten to appreciate everything the demon could offer yet. If there was one thing I’d believed in since I’d needed my transplant, it was squeezing every bit of joy out of life that I could while I had the chance.
Rollick deepened the kiss with a flick of his tongue around mine. He dipped his body closer so the heat of his massive demon body wrapped around me, but I could tell he was being careful not to press too firmly in case he aggravated my mostly-healed wound. A weird thread of tenderness wove through my hunger. The emotion flooding me from him was all eager desire.
“And what can you sense from me now, my sorcerer?” he murmured as he kissed the edge of my jaw and then my neck.
I shivered with my own eagerness. My voice came out husky. “I sense that you want me just as much as I want you.”
He made a rough sound in his throat even as he smiled against my skin, and teased the sharp tips of his teeth down to the crook of my shoulder, drawing giddying lines across my skin. At my whimper, he nibbled my shoulder a little more forcefully while his hands slid my shirt—and the silver-threaded undershirt he’d had made for me, as promised—partway up my ribcage.
He licked my collarbone and gave my shirt a momentary glower. “I’m looking forward to a time when I can spread you naked and enjoy all of you like the delicacy you are. For now, I’ll just have to work with the territory I have access to.”
Easing to one side, Rollick lifted my arm and pressed a kiss to my palm. He nibbled his way over the heel of my hand, across my wrist, and down the inside of my arm, until the movement of his lips against the sensitive skin had me quivering. When he reached the short sleeve of my shirt, he reached for my other hand.
By the time he’d worshipped both of my arms, my panties were drenched and I was swallowing whimpers. Then in one swift movement, he dropped to the skin he’d cleared on my belly.
The demon kissed and licked and sucked at every inch of my lower abdomen, grazing me with his teeth here and there, trailing his claws up and down my sides. When a gasp burst from my throat, he smirked up at me.
“I’ve barely even gotten started on the good parts.”
Having seen his reaction the first time I’d touched one of his horns, I curled my fingers around both of them now. As I stroked them up and down from the base to the tips and back again, Rollick gave a little shudder with a waft of his own giddy enjoyment.
He yanked my shorts and panties down and dappled kisses across my hips, leaning into my caresses here and there. Then, with a faint noise of consternation, he pulled lower, tugging my clothes completely off.
This time, he started at my feet. He kissed the soles and my ankles, charted every curve of my calves and thighs with his short claws, nipped the undersides of my knees, and breathed close enough to the apex of my thighs that I moaned in frustration.
“Have I not quite satisfied you yet?” he teased.
“Rollick,” I growled, grasping his horns again.
He hummed with a mix of amusement and pleasure and lowered his head between my legs.
The first swipe of his tongue over my cunt had me shuddering. He knew exactly the right pressure and pace to have my clit pulsing in a matter of seconds, my pussy gushing with arousal to the point that it would have been embarrassing if he hadn’t lapped up the reaction to his attentions so enthusiastically.
Retracting his claws, he slid a finger between my folds to swirl inside me in a slow circle, stretching my inner walls. When I rocked into his touch, he chuckled before sucking on my clit again. Bliss swelled all through my core.
“I need to get you ready for all of me,” he said. “If you want to be taken by the demon, you’re going to need to be ready for both of my dicks.”
The moan that spilled out of me at the next swivel of his tongue was nothing but approval. He spread the slickness seeping from my slit down to my other opening and then tucked a finger into that entrance as well.
More pleasure quivered through me. With a strangled sound, I pushed into his touch.
“So impatient, lovely mortal. But you’re right—I don’t want to hurt you. I want you to get nothing out of this encounter but the highest of pleasures. So we’ll do this right.”
He pumped his fingers in and out of me, rotating them in expanding circles as he did. His lips closed around my clit, and then he brushed the edges of his teeth over it, and all at once I careened over my peak. Bliss rushed through my body in a wave. I rocked with it, letting out a sob that was nothing but joyful.
“Hmm. A very good start.” Rollick crawled up over me again, tucking my legs around his hips. I trailed my hands down his sculpted chest to the two cocks jutting down below, one right above the other.
The first twitched at my grip. I slid my fingers up and down it a few times experimentally, and the demon let out a muted snarl. But he didn’t stop me from reaching lower and stroking the other one too. That one had already beaded with a thick precum that glided over both his shafts under my exploring fingers with a consistency not much different from the lube Torrent had confiscated. He was obviously built for penetrating multiple holes at once.
The discovery sent a quiver of delight through me. I spread my legs wider and teased my hands back up Rollick’s body to grasp his shoulders. “I need you.”
The words set off a flare of contentment in the demon that I didn’t have time to consider too closely, because the next moment, he was sliding into me, both dicks in their separate openings simultaneously.
At the heady rush of being penetrated both ways in tandem, my head tipped back into the pillow with a cry. As Rollick pushed deeper, the blissful burn spread all through my body. My breath broke into panting.
Even in the haze of pleasure, I couldn’t help remembering how the demon had promised he’d have me like this—willingly—one day, back when I’d recoiled from the thought. My hand tightened around his shoulder, the other rising to caress one of his horns again. “Is this… how you thought it would happen?”
Rollick plunged the rest of the way into me with a groan. He held there, claiming a kiss and then bowing his head next to mine.
“No,” he said quietly. “This is much better. This is something I didn’t know I could even aim for.”
Then he began to move again, thrusting in and out with quickly increasing speed. His renewed claws curled against my side, my hip, and my thigh in time with his rhythm. His tail swooped around his own hips so the tufted tip could trace its own delightful trails across my skin.
“Oh, God,” I mumbled. My second orgasm was building so swiftly I couldn’t do anything but clutch onto Rollick. He thrust into me deeper, angling himself so the base of his upper cock brushed my clit. His shafts pounded in and out of me, filling me with bliss again and again, sending me spiraling higher and higher until everything around me was a searing mist of pleasure?—
And then ecstasy crackled through me twice as hard, my pussy clamping around one of his cocks, my body arching. Rollick slipped his hand under my back to press me to him and stole one last kiss with a groan as he came with me. His release sent a fresh flood of delight through me that had me shuddering and gasping all over again.
He lowered his head so his forehead rested against mine, his breath only slightly broken. A glow of satisfaction radiated from him into me. I slung my arms around his neck in a loose embrace that was the best I could offer in my current bonelessly sated state.
“Well,” I said, “I really hope I don’t die tonight, because I’d like to do that again sometime.”
I’d meant to make Rollick laugh, but he tensed, his happiness vanishing with a surge of fiery protectiveness. “If they get to you, it’ll only be over my dead body.”
I gazed up at him, somehow still startled by the proclamation—and horrified by the thought of him losing his life over me, no matter how willing he might be to give it.
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, then.”
His lips curled into a tight but affectionate smile. “Yes, let’s.”
As if we’d have a whole lot of choice in the matter.