18. Hook
Never’s emotions were all over the place. I could see it in her face and the wildness in her eyes. It was also bleeding into me where we touched, like her body couldn’t possibly contain all the uncertainty churning inside her.
“One thing at a time, love,” I said quietly. “We’ll figure this out.”
She let out a bitter laugh that did nothing to calm the energy pulsing from her, but beneath the bitterness and fatigue was affection. Warm and inviting.
If my head had felt even a fraction better, I would have lifted it from where it rested, cupped her face in my hands, and kissed her until she stopped thinking about everything that was poisoning her mind.
Instead, I squeezed her hand again, feeling the pendant anchored between our palms. “Are you trying to help me heal?”
She rolled her eyes. “Just shut up and let your body do its thing.”
I chuckled at her attitude. I would rather have her fiery and feisty than unsteady and unsure any day of the week.
“How are you feeling?” she whispered, casting a quick glance to her right.
I twisted just far enough to see she’d been checking on Leo, who was fast asleep in the chair just a few short feet away.
“I’ve been better,” I admitted. “But it’s nothing I can’t handle.”
Even as I spoke, I could feel my body working to repair the damage. Clever girl that she was, Never had been right to use the pendant. My body tapped into the magic of that piece of me, aiding the process.
“Good.” She shifted around, trying to get comfortable, before she settled with her head resting on her arm.
When she closed her eyes, I figured it would just be for a moment, but as minute after minute passed, her breathing became slow and steady.
“You’re a damn lucky pirate. I hope you know that,” Lily whispered, her words barely audible even with my enhanced hearing.
I knew. Never was like no one I’d ever met. She was everything I never knew I wanted.
“She thinks she’s cursed.”
That got my attention. I pulled my gaze away from her peaceful face and found Lily perched on a stool at the kitchen counter. “Why would she think that?”
“Because everything she touches falls apart. At least, that’s the way she sees it.”
With my free hand, I reached out and ever-so-gently brushed Never’s hair away from her face. “She’s wrong.”
“Are you sure?”
No. Not about the curse, but she was wrong about everything falling apart, because the only time I felt whole was when I was with her.
I didn’t answer Lily, and she didn’t ask again.
I laid there for a long time just watching Never sleep. Her suspicion that she might be cursed lingered in my mind, mingling with other thoughts and notions. It was certainly a possibility. It was also possible that her entire family line might bear the weight of a hex.
There were ways to check for that kind of magic, but they required the help of a powerful witch.
Then there was the issue of her blood. There were many things a magical being could do to torture a demon. Things one could not do to a human, like summoning them to the far reaches of the universe.
Curses could be unraveled. Hexes could be broken. It always took time and power, but it could be done.
If the sea witch was right, however, even a sliver of demonic blood meant Never and her brother were damned.
It meant there would be no peace for her soul when she passed from this world. There was no hell in the traditional human sense, but there was a place that may as well have been hell for all the more inviting it was. The birthplace of the original demons.
These days, it was called the Alius. Only it wasn’t as much a place as it was a plane that existed in the same space as the human realm, overlapping. Much like the Nassa, time in the Alius didn’t line up with time in the human realm.
It was also equally difficult to get there.
More so, perhaps, considering the veil acted as a barrier to keep those planes separate, even from gods. If something happened to Never here, in her world, and her blood landed her in the Alius, I would have no way of getting to her.
The short-sighted part of me wanted to believe that all I had to do was keep Never safe in her world, but death by any cause would end with her soul trapped in the Alius. The only real answer for keeping that from happening was to take her back to the Nassa and keep her safe there long enough for the realm’s magic to protect her.
She flinched in her sleep, trying to yank free of my grip. Instead of letting her go, I traced feather-light circles over the back of her hand until whatever dream she’d been having subsided. I cast a look across the room to where Lily had been sitting earlier, hours earlier judging from the light in the room, and she was still there, watching.
We held each other’s gaze for seconds that stretched into minutes, almost as though we were coming to a silent understanding. For me, that understanding was that I needed Never in my life. I needed her by my side. Except keeping her meant trapping her in my world forever.
Letting her go meant condemning her to the Alius after her very short human life drew to an end.
Neither option was ideal, but the Nassa was clearly the better of the two.
Ah, but will she come with me?
If her brother was alive and in the human world, the answer would be a resounding no.
If he was in my realm? She’d already traveled there once to rescue him. She would do it again.
I turned my attention back to Never. Would she hate me if I dragged her brother back to the Nassa? Maybe not, if she knew the truth. But I already knew she would hate me if she ever learned I’d done it for my own selfish reasons.
I would hate myself too if I was ever that weak.
That the thought had even crossed my mind had my inner critic clucking his sharp tongue.
“You awake?” Leo asked quietly.
“I am,” I whispered, twisting around carefully to get a look at him without waking Never. “I owe you. A great deal.”
He pulled his bottom lip between his teeth, biting hard enough to turn the flesh white. Then he shook his head. “You would have done the same for me.”
True. That was one of the many benefits that came with having loyal friends. You helped each other even when you were at odds.
His gaze slid to Never, her face slack with sleep as her hand remained tangled with mine. Emotions played across his face in slow motion as he took her in.
When he met my eyes again moments later, his smile was tinged with sadness. “I didn’t want to admit it earlier, even to myself, but her heart obviously belongs to you.”
Thank the stars. Despite my feelings for her, I did not relish the idea of tangling with one of my dearest friends for any reason.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
I nodded. “Better.”
“All healed?”
“Mostly.” If one ignored the hole I’d torn in my own heart thinking about Never’s fate.
“Is she okay?”
I took a beat to weigh my answer. “As near as I can tell, but I would like to get her up off the floor. I just haven’t been able to bring myself to wake her.”
“I would offer to carry her back to the bedroom—”
An involuntary rumble started deep in my chest at the thought of him putting his hands on her, even innocently.
He dipped his head. “That’s what I thought.”
Heat raced up the back of my neck at what I’d just done. There was no denying I had a primitive side. All creatures did. But I’d worked hard to keep that side of myself caged. Reacting like that, to a friend no less, was exceptionally bad form.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s gotten into me.”
He pulled himself up and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees with a smirk. “Yes, you do. If our roles were reversed, I’d be a growly, grumbly sonofabitch too.”
Unlacing my fingers from Never’s, I set the pendant on the table. It took some effort to get myself off the couch and lift her off the ground without waking her. In part because I wasn’t yet fully healed. Every movement felt rusty, but eventually I got her situated in her own bed.
The logical part of my brain said I needed to go back out and start working out a plan to deal with the shadow, but the woman in front of me was all-consuming.
Leaving her clothed was the smartest option given my limited control, but her clothes were still covered in blood, dust, and ash. So, I worked quickly to peel off her shirt and jeans in the most efficient and non-sexual way.
It was no use. My blood was already racing at the sight of her in just her underthings, despite her unconscious state.
What does that say about me?
Rather than dwelling on it, I toed off my boots, pulled my shirt off over my head, and climbed into the bed behind her. Gathering her close with her nearly bare back flush to my chest was like coming home after a long, lonely journey.
I wanted her as close as I could have her, for as long as I could have her. Which, given her depressingly short mortal life, wouldn’t be long enough.
Minutes ticked by in relative silence, her steady breathing the only meaningful sound in the room. Except with each steady inhale and exhale, the innocent press of her warm body against mine morphed from comforting to arousing.
She shifted her hips, pressing back into me, and I had to swallow my groan. When she did it a second time, her sumptuous rear end nudging my length, I gave into the urge to let my lips brush along the back of her neck.
Only she didn’t respond.
Is she teasing?
Or was she still sleeping and unaware of what her body was doing?
I traced a lazy line with my fingertips, down her side to her hip and along the line of thin fabric clinging there. “Never,” I whispered.
She mewled in response.
It was encouraging, but still not a clear indicator she was awake. A better man would have stopped right there. Which was to say a better man would not have slipped his hand beneath the barely there fabric of her panties. He also wouldn’t have had to bite his own lip to stay the rumble of satisfaction that tried to escape when he found her deliciously slick and hot.
I eased up onto my elbow to get a better look at her. Her eyes were still closed, but the look on her face spoke of anticipation.
“Is this what you want?” I asked quietly.
She didn’t respond with words, but it was almost as though I could feel her awareness. As much as I longed to keep going, with my pulse ramping up and my body primed, I was struck by the fact that I didn’t know her well enough to take those tiny responses as permission.
“Give me one word, Never. Yes or no?”
She arched languidly in my arms, pushing back into me once more.
“I’m going to need more than that if you want me to keep going,” I whispered, leaning in close to her ear.
If she heard me, she gave no indication.
I tried to stop myself, but my treacherous hand moved anyway, sliding further down. My fingertips skated along her wetness until I found her clit. Guilt was eating at me, making me question every heated touch.
But the desire pouring out of her would have been enough to best a man a thousand times better than me.
I circled that glorious little nub just once, and she huffed out a sharp breath. A jolt of satisfaction shot through me, so I did it again, a little harder, eliciting a breathy moan that had my cock straining for her.
The woman was killing me.
“Give me something.” For the love of all the gods. Give me anything.
“Please.” That single syllable was barely a whisper, but it set my pulse to galloping.
A wicked smile curved my lips.
I circled her clit again and again, until Never’s breaths grew faster and sharper. Still, she didn’t open her eyes. The vixen. When I pressed two fingers into the tight well of her pussy, she leaned into the sensation.
“You’re making me feel like a monster,” I whispered, though it was only half true.
Her eyelids fluttered. “Then be my monster.”
Another thrill rolled through me, this one darkly satisfying. I’d been worried that I’d hurt her the night before when I’d lost control in that cramped closet, but if she truly wanted to see my monstrous side, I would be more than happy to introduce her to it.
Later. For now, I had other plans.
I alternated between pumping those two fingers into her and sliding them up to tease her clit. She was enjoying the experience. That much was wonderfully obvious. Her cheeks were flushed, her body hot, but with the way she wouldn’t look at me or talk to me, what I was doing still felt a bit like a violation.
And yet, somehow, in precise contrast, it felt so very right.
That rightness was what I focused on, and once I paid attention to it, I realized it wasn’t coming from me. The doubt and the hesitation were mine. That overwhelming sense to keep going? That was bleeding into me from her.
Only this, I thought, promising myself I would not fully cross the line unless she opened her damned eyes. Indeed, the next time I buried myself inside her, I would have her begging for it first.
I worked her like that, working myself up as I watched the expression on her face change the closer I drove her to orgasm. My fingers swirled and stroked and pumped until her brow pinched, and her jaw clenched, and her fingers were digging into the blanket at her sides. When she finally broke, it was a soft and perfectly silent thing, as though even her breath was caught in the moment. Her back arched beautifully, and her whole body trembled as I gentled my touch and eased her back down.
It took only a few minutes for her pulse and breathing to recover. After a few more, she was fast asleep.
My cock, on the other hand, was at full attention and straining against my pants. Despite the desire torching my insides like a wildfire, I refused to take things even an inch farther.
She needed sleep. Desperately, if I were to venture a guess. Sleep she certainly would not get if I remained where I was.
Drawing in a heavy breath, I dragged myself from her side, slipped out of her room, and padded silently down the hall. I took my time washing up in the bathroom. My body needed a chance to calm down before I dared to make my way back to the living room.
“Is she sleeping?” Lily asked, eyeing me with unveiled suspicion as I stepped from the hallway.
I nodded. “Quite heavily, it would seem.”
“Yeah.” She hopped off the stool and moved to the couch, pausing a moment to stretch in a way so languidly feline there was no mistaking the women’s shifter lineage. It wasn’t until she’d taken up her spot in the corner of the couch, curling her long legs up beside her, that she offered more. “That girl has been running herself into the ground.”
A vision of the night before flashed into my mind. When I’d had her pinned to the door and grinding into her. I barely managed to cut off the thought before it had a chance to reawaken my baser urges. This was not the time or place for such decadent daydreams.
“What can I do to help her?” I asked, moving to take a seat at the opposite end of the couch.
Leo shrugged. Lily, on the other hand, chewed on her cheek as though she had something to say.
“Out with it,” I commanded.
She bristled at the order. There was a time when she would have done what I said without thinking, but she’d been much younger then. Now, she was a creature of two worlds, and the longer I was around her, the more obvious it was that the rules of the Nassa didn’t necessarily apply to her anymore.
“You’re lucky I still like you,” she said through gritted teeth.
Thiswas her likingme? “I’d hate to find myself on your bad side.” I offered her a charming smile, a weapon in my arsenal to which she was apparently immune.
Leo coughed out an amused laugh, hiding it behind the back of his hand.
Lily glared between us, before settling her tired gaze squarely on me. “You want to help? Tell me how we exorcise a demon from a seventeen-year-old kid.”