Chapter 5
Nicolas
After they ate, Nicolas and Daniel passed the rest of the afternoon on the couch together.
Daniel turned on a movie, which Nicolas slept through, his head pillowed on his little brother’s leg.
When the sunlight waned, Daniel reluctantly left him alone to get some rest. Nicolas had a deliciously hot shower, washing the whip lashes with a grimace, and then spent a very long time standing under the spray with his fingers brushing the circle of little scabs around his areola.
Maybe Sloan was right. Maybe he needed to be punished.
His squad was dead. People he used to consider friends.
Instead, all he cared about was the way that demon had made him feel.
The moment they’d touched, the whole world had condensed around them.
All that mattered was each other. He’d never felt anything like it, and he couldn’t deny that a part of him wanted to feel it again.
Things were so simple, there in the dark with the sin eater. Terrifying—but thrilling.
He hadn’t bothered with clothes, too tired and sore. He barely had the presence of mind to hang his towel up to dry. The bed called to him, and when he reached his bedroom, he cut the light off.
Twin orbs of orange lit up across the room. Nicolas froze, his heart in his throat. Was it really him, or was he seeing things? He didn’t move, awareness prickling across his bare skin.
Nicolas took a slow breath. “Is that you?”
No response. He turned the light on again, and the orange orbs were gone. Was it just an odd reflection in his dresser mirror?
“Can’t be him,” he told himself. “I have wards on the apartment.”
He hadn’t done more than lightly doze in over twenty-four hours. His exhausted mind was conjuring hallucinations of things that were already occupying his mind. A good night’s sleep would put a stop to this.
But when he turned off the lights again with the intention of going straight to bed, the eyes were right in front of him now. Strong hands gripped his upper arms and shoved him against the wall, a shock of cold along his wounded back. He gasped, and the demon’s tongue invaded his mouth.
Nicolas moaned, opening his mouth wide and tilting his head to slant their lips together better.
This was it. This was exactly what he wanted.
The sin eater kissed like he wanted to crawl inside him, and Nicolas wanted to let him.
There was a hook in his heart, pulling him toward the demon, and only when they were together did the ache finally stop.
In the sin eater’s grasp, his wounds stopped hurting, the constant fear went blessedly silent, and all that mattered was the push and pull of their bodies together.
And now, he was fresh from a shower, completely naked, and the demon’s hands roamed like it couldn’t get enough of the sensation of his skin. Rough palms explored his bare arms, his sides, his hips. Claws pricked the globes of his ass, and Nicolas tore his mouth from the demon’s, panting.
“How did you—get in?” he asked. “I have wards on the door.”
“Weak wards,” the demon said, sharp teeth grazing his neck.
At the first pricks of pain, fear returned hard and fast. Nicolas jerked back so quickly he banged his head on the wall, and the demon growled, cupping the back of his head like he was pissed Nicolas had hurt himself.
“You can’t leave marks on my neck. You can’t leave a mark anywhere that my clothes wouldn’t cover.”
He growled again, this time petulantly.
Fear made him tremble. “No one can know. If the guild finds out—”
“Kill you.”
Nicolas sagged. “Yeah.”
The demon tugged him away from the cool wall, wrapping him in a secure hug that warmed him immediately. It was like the demon wanted to shelter him from the guild.
“Then why stay?”
It was the same thing Daniel had asked. Nicolas’s face twisted.
“It’s not good now, but it used to be. I grew up hearing tales of glory from my father, who was a paladin, too.
My mother was a teacher there, and so was her mother before her.
Being a paladin like our dad was all my brother and I ever wanted.
” That wasn’t an excuse anymore, not after the things the guild had done, but he didn’t have anything else.
Being a paladin had been his only purpose for his entire life.
If he didn’t have that, he would be lost.
Soft claws tickled his cheek. The demon’s glowing eyes gazed at him with a softness that didn’t make sense.
“Pain.”
Nicolas’s heart squeezed. He didn’t mean a physical pain. “Yeah, it hurts. Losing them hurt. Losing that connection to them through the guild would hurt, too.”
The demon’s grip tightened. “Protect.”
“Why?”
The demon didn’t respond, his eyes roaming Nicolas’s face like it might hold the answers.
And then he leaned in, slipping his tongue into Nicolas’s mouth again.
He didn’t kiss like a normal human, his tongue roaming and licking in ways no other partner ever had, and Nicolas wondered if he’d ever done this with a human before—or at all. And if not, why now? Why Nicolas?
Clawed hands fell to his rear, hooking under his thighs and lifting. Nicolas clung to his sturdy shoulders. He was rock hard, his cock leaving a trail of precum on the demon’s cloak. There was no answering bulge beneath the fabric yet. The demon turned and deposited him on the bed.
“Beautiful,” the demon said, crawling over him. “Beautiful human.”
He swallowed hard. “Nicolas.”
“Mm?”
“My name. It’s Nicolas.”
Claws touched his face again, reverently. “Beautiful Niclasss.” He ducked his head and licked a stripe up Nicolas’s chest.
Nicolas chuckled, arching into the touch and shivering as the trail of saliva cooled on his skin. “Nic-o-las,” he enunciated.
“Light,” the demon countered, cradling his head in both hands. “Bright light. My light.”
Nicolas’s breath shuddered out of him. “Do you have a name?”
The demon’s tongue flicked against Nicolas’s lips. “Ashmedai.”
It sounded appropriately ethereal. “Ashmedai,” he whispered.
Those orange eyes loomed closer. “Again.”
His heart was pounding. He spread his legs, inviting Ashmedai to settle between them. “Ashmedai,” he said again.
A growing bulge beneath the cloak pressed against his groin, and Ashmedai licked into his mouth again. “Need,” he growled. “Now.”
“Yes, God yes.” He reached for the hood of the cloak, slipping a hand into the dark recesses of it. He grazed what he thought was an ear, and then Ashmedai caught his wrist.
“What?” he croaked, like he didn’t understand what Nicolas was doing.
“Can I see you?” Nicolas asked. “All of you?”
Ashmedai shifted, a simmering growl purring out of him. “No.”
“But—”
“Not—” Ashmedai stopped, planting a hand beside Nicolas’s head and looming directly over him. His other hand still held Nicolas’s against the side of his face. His skin was lightly textured, not unlike human skin. “Not human,” he said, guiding Nicolas’s hand from his ear toward his face.
His lips were thin, his mouth wider, perhaps, than a normal human mouth.
There was no nose, but he felt breath puff against his fingertips somehow anyway.
Two eyes, which closed when he found them.
No eyebrows, as far as he could tell, and no hair, when Ashmedai let his fingers trail up beyond his forehead.
His orange eyes met Nicolas’s again. This close, he could see the dark pupil in the center. “See?”
“I don’t care what you look like. I already know you’re not human.”
Ashmedai leaned in, so close they were breathing each other’s air. “Scary,” Ashmedai whispered, tongue flicking against Nicolas’s lips again. It drew a smile to his face.
“Scarier than seeing you kill seven people?” Nicolas whispered back.
Ashmedai let out a chuff, then covered Nicolas’s mouth with one hand and moved away.
Nicolas uttered a groan of protest—which turned into a moan as Ashmedai mouthed a wet trail down his body.
Teeth dragged against his hip, and then that wicked tongue circled his cock, wrapping around the head and stroking.
Nicolas’s legs spread wide, his hips rutting up into the tight, wet grip. When lips sealed around the tip, sharp teeth grazed his frenulum and he yelped.
“No teeth! Not there!”
Ashmedai stilled, glowing eyes flicking up to meet his. The mouth around his length adjusted, and the teeth disappeared behind his lips. Nicolas went boneless with relief.
“Thanks. Sorry.”
Ashmedai came off him with a pop. “No sorry. Humans strange. Soft and squishy.” As though to illustrate his point, he squeezed Nicolas’s thigh, claws pricking lightly through the skin and drawing droplets of blood to the surface. They were so sharp, he barely felt any pain.
“That’s just because you have sharp claws.
If you—oh God,” he broke off with a moan when Ashmedai licked the bead of precum from his cock and suckled the head back into his mouth.
He threw an arm over his eyes, because if he looked down and saw that eerie, hooded head bobbing on his cock he’d lose it immediately.
“If you could trim those things, I wouldn’t bleed so easily. ”
Ashmedai lifted his head again, and Nicolas’s cock jerked in disappointment. “Trim?” he repeated in a scandalized rasp.
Nicolas laughed, startled by the sound even though it came from his own mouth. “Yeah. Like mine.” He held a hand out for Ashmedai to look at, with his blunt, rounded nails.
Ashmedai studied his fingers for a moment, then sucked two of them into his mouth, humming at the taste. His tongue delved between his fingers and wrapped around them. Nicolas shifted impatiently. He’d rather that mouth be around his cock again.
“See?” he said hoarsely. “If you trimmed them, I could do that to your fingers.”
Sharp teeth clamped lightly around his fingers, and his orange eyes widened. He tugged Nicolas’s fingers from his mouth and said, “Trim… Maybe.”
Nicolas laughed again.