Chapter 11
Sixty seconds ago, Stryke had been prepared to die. Deep down, a tiny part of him had wanted to die. Maybe then…maybe he could find Chaos. Because right now, as a breathing, corporeal person, he hadn’t had any success locating his baby brother’s soul. But as a soul himself, Stryke might have an advantage.
So, death had never been something to fear. He’d flirted with it over and over. Sometimes intentionally, other times recklessly, still more unconsciously. It wasn’t that he yearned for death. It was that he just didn’t care if it came for him.
But in this moment, he wanted to live. He wanted to taste Cyan’s mouth. He wanted to inhale the metallic scent of her skin. He wanted to feel the slippery wetness between her legs.
He couldn’t remember ever desiring a female like this, like he wanted to pour everything into her.
Desperate. That was the word for what he was feeling. Desperation for her. For an escape. From his head and this fucked-up situation.
They were probably all going to die, so he might as well go out with a bang.
“Come with me.” He took her wrist and hurried them both to his private quarters, ignoring the crewmembers’ curious stares as they passed.
Once inside the small, starkly appointed room, he slammed the door closed and faced Cyan.
Her hair, flattened to her skull by the rain, hung in her eyes as she watched him, her violet eyes sparkling. Literally sparkling as if they were tiny snow globes. He’d never seen anything like it.
“Your eyes.” He stepped into her, catching her face in his palms as he studied them. “They’re remarkable.” Mesmerizing.
Her smile made the corners crinkle, and her lashes swept down almost coyly. “They do that when we’re channeling our ability.” She gestured to the door. “I locked it.”
“Good.”
He hadn’t wanted to take the time to operate the electronic lock. He needed to be inside Cyan before Chaos made his appearance in his head and fucked everything up.
Two minutes. He’d give half his fortune to have just two minutes of mind-emptying freedom from everything except the feel of Cyan wrapped around him.
“Stryke.” Cyan tapped his cheek. “You okay? It’s like someone hit your pause button.”
“It’s all good,” he said as she slid her palm along his jaw to the back of his head and pulled his mouth down to hers. Her other hand dropped to his belt and tugged.
He kissed her as he worked the buttons on her pants, his tongue tangling with hers in the hottest kiss he’d ever experienced. He’d never liked kissing; it seemed like an unnecessary and pointless act. But Cyan made it…interesting. Little nips and licks that made him imagine her doing that to other parts of his body. And when she caught his lower lip between her teeth and sucked gently, his knees nearly buckled.
Then she took him into her palm, and they did buckle.
Catching her around the waist, he dropped them both onto the bed. It was little more than a cot he’d never even slept in, but it was enough. He shifted to the side and worked her pants down her thighs as her hand worked his cock.
Firm strokes took him from the crown to the base and back up, and he groaned into her mouth. Her slacks, wet from the storm, bunched up at her ankles, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t wait a second longer. Not when his blood was on fire, and his pelvis was throbbing so hard he could feel it all the way to his teeth.
Dipping his hand between her legs, he tested her readiness for him, even though he already knew what he’d find. Hot honey coated his fingers as he slid them between her folds. Okay, maybe he could spare a couple of seconds to play a little.
He added his thumb to the game, circling her clit and then pinching lightly. Her soft cries stoked the flames shooting through his veins, making him so hot his damp clothes should be steaming.
How does she taste?
The thought shocked him so much that he glitched for a second.
He’d never wanted to taste a female. It was another of those pointless things people did during copulation.
He’d always been in it for the life-giving orgasm. A few pumps of his hips, and the shit was done. Masumi had offered to teach him to perform oral sex a million times, and he’d refused.
But suddenly, he wanted to go down on Cyan and make up for lost time.
Except it hadn’t been lost because he’d used those pointless minutes to solve problems and make the world a better place.
“Stryke,” Cyan moaned, arching into his hand. “Yes…oh, yes.”
The sight of her, flushed and aroused, rocking into his touch, filled him with a sense of pride. Again, all his life, sex had been about one thing. Him.
But he was loving what his touch did to Cyan.
Her hand swept across the head of his cock, and then she tugged him closer. By his penis.
Holy…damn, that felt amazing, and if she wanted him closer, that worked. He needed to be inside her.
He rolled on top of her and pinned her legs between his. Her pants bound her ankles together, but there was enough room to rock his hips and bury his cock inside her slick heat. They both moaned as he sank deep.
“How are you doing?” he rasped. “You okay?”
“Yes,” she breathed. “Hurry.”
That was all he could do. She was too tight, and he was burning. She jammed her hands under his waistband and slid his pants to the bare skin of his ass, holding him against her as he pumped his hips wildly. He let ecstasy roll over him like a wave, drowning him in bliss.
And for a moment, a precious, glorious moment, there was nothing but pleasure.
Then he smelled popcorn.
Buttery fucking popcorn.
Chaos .
Mental anguish blew his world apart like a bomb. The fire in his blood became a cold sludge, even as his heartbeat went tachycardic, beating so fast he thought it might explode. Icy sweat bloomed across his skin as his baby brother’s death played through his head like a movie.
Time had not blurred the edges of his memory, either. If anything, the images were sharper, the screams louder, the blood redder.
Please, no…
His body moved independently of his brain, seeking and finding the release it needed. But the pleasure was dulled by the nightmare in his head, leaving only a distant sense of physical relief.
Beneath him, Cyan cried out, her body writhing in ecstasy. She came hard, not even noticing his hasty withdrawal. That was the power of a Sem’s ejaculate. She’d climax over and over until her body was wrung out and exhausted.
Few females complained about being tired.
Quickly, Stryke zipped up and ducked out of the room. He tried to tell himself he had shit to do so they wouldn’t all die, but he’d never been good at lying to himself. And while time was definitely of the essence, there was more to his hasty exit.
He was running from himself again.
He was always running from himself. And soon, there would be nowhere to go.
Okay, so that was weird.
Cyan panted through what she thought might be her ninth orgasm. They were milder now, mild enough that she’d actually been able to pull up her pants during one.
Weakly, she made it to Stryke’s private bathroom and cleaned up, the process of which made her come again. Wow. Just the slightest touch of the washcloth had left her moaning and weak-kneed. No wonder there was a market for arousal creams formulated with Seminus semen.
She took a deep breath and collected herself. Checked her watch. Damn, she’d lost fifteen minutes to—
She sucked air as another climax ripped through her. The mildest so far, it still left her wobbly on her feet as she fixed her hair, borrowed a dry denim work shirt from his closet, and made her way to the door. She didn’t have time for this.
But wouldn’t it be nice if I did? If I could just lie there with Stryke and bask in wave after wave of mind-blowing pleasure?
She immediately struck that thought. She wasn’t going to have sex with Stryke again. That had been a one-time thing to keep him going so they could get off this wretched platform alive.
Hopefully, he was working on that right now. Why else would he have escaped from her as if she were a female Dire Mantis intent on devouring him after mating?
Still, he could have at least said goodbye.
Her fingers shook as she opened the door and slipped out into the empty hallway. No one saw her as she made her way to the bridge, where she'd been told Stryke was two decks below with the submersible.
The rain had stopped again, but fog engulfed her, wrapping her in a stinging, dark sensation as she took the metal stairs down, pausing once for another climax. She clung to the railing, acutely aware of how bizarre it was to experience pleasure while malevolent forces swirled around her. Worse, the vulnerability that came with it left her sweating despite the cold. Anything could climb out of the sea and drag her into the water while she was distracted.
When the pleasure passed, she hurried toward the submersible. The metal sphere hung suspended over a gap in the grating by a massive crane-like structure. Stryke stood next to it, discussing something with Taran.
As she approached, Taran nodded and headed away at a jog. Stryke waved her forward.
“We figured out a way to electrify the sub’s exterior. It might not be effective against leviathans, but it should offer some protection against smaller demons and Earth realm animals affected by the malevolent radiation.”
“Great,” she said. “You wanna talk about what just happened?”
He shot her a look. “What happened between us? No. Nice shirt. Hand me that epoxy.”
“It was dry, and I was freezing.” She didn’t care that it was too big and hung to mid-thigh. She passed him the tube lying on the deck a few feet away. “How long do you have?”
“Until I need sex again?” He shrugged as he wiped a section of the sub dry with his sleeve. “Four to six hours, but hopefully, we’ll be off this thing by then.”
“Then can we talk?”
He carefully applied a layer of glue to the dry spot. “No.”
“No?” She stared at him in disbelief. “Excuse me, but you owe me.”
“For saving my life?” He snorted. “Okay, thank you.”
He. Was. Infuriating.
“Not that, you jackass. You wanna off yourself, I don’t give a shit. What you owe me for is being here in the first place. And you owe me for getting me killed because that’s probably what’s going to happen.”
He pulled a quarter-sized, crimson witchstone from his pocket and affixed it to the glue.
“Okay, fine. I owe you. What’s so important that we need to discuss it right this second instead of, you know, saving the entire world?”
Damn him. He was right. She’d let her emotions reign when she needed to figure out how to repair the other technomancer’s work before a rift between realms opened.
Setting her irritation aside, she studied the witchstone, a type of spell-absorbing stone that allowed magic users to extend the reach of their spells. Most mage magic didn’t work underwater, but the witchstone would act as a slow-release capsule and, in theory, create a temporary barrier from evil.
“If you glue your comms unit to the side of the sub, I can use it to make a secondary protective barrier.”
“Good thinking.” He whipped it off his wrist. “I don’t know how deep it’ll go before it breaks, though.”
“Anything will help.” She gestured, and he tossed it to her. She whistled as she turned it over in her palms. The leather band, encrusted with what she was sure were diamonds, screamed money. “You want to remove the band first? It’s gotta be worth ten grand.”
“Thirty. And no, it’s fine. The diamonds enhance the unit’s performance.”
Okey dokey. “I guess when you’re a bazillionaire, thirty thousand bucks is nothing.”
His gaze bored into hers. “If the watch was worth my entire fortune, I wouldn’t care,” he said. “What I care about are the people on this rig and on this planet who will die if we fail. Evil can’t win, Cyan. I won’t let it, and I don’t care how much it costs.”
And that fast, she felt like a jerk. She had no idea how to respond, so she concentrated on the inner workings of his comms, sending a spell into it to enhance the mage’s barrier. When she was done, she handed it back to him.
He secured it to the craft, pausing every time something growled or screeched nearby.
“This is so creepy.” A chill skittered over her skin as she looked around the platform and the tendrils of fog that slithered across the deck.
“It’s nothing compared to what will happen if the breach breaks wide open and brings Sheoul to our realm,” he said. “Ever been there?”
“Sheoul? Never. I was raised in the human realm, and I prefer to stay in it. Most demons are horrible.” She eyed him. “Why? Have you?”
“Yep.” He stepped back from the craft and admired his handiwork. “Been a long time, though.”
“Does StryTech do business with demons in Sheoul?”
“We do,” he said. “But I make them come to me, or I send representatives in my place.”
The sound of footsteps drew their attention, and they turned just as Taran cleared the last step on the ladder down.
“We’re good to go,” he said grimly. “All that’s left to do is pray to the deity of your choice. You’re going to need every advantage you can get.”