Demon Bait: Children of the Undying, Book 1 (8 page)

“This road leads straight to the museum. Huge silver building on the edge of the river. I’ve got a place in the basement, with plenty of locks and supplies. Even ADS, if we need it. So just keep running until you get there.”

Maybe Marci sensed his emotions, because she didn’t wait for him to urge her along, or try to make sure he followed. She took off, sticking close to the cover of the buildings that faced the river. Moving fast—as fast as he could, with half of his senses straining for the slightest noise from behind them.

Or above them.

No demons appeared. Nothing appeared, not until they burst out of the trees and into the ruins of what had once been a university. Some buildings stood sturdily enough, and some walls had long since crumbled. Straight ahead was the monstrous metal construction that housed rotting paintings and broken sculptures.

It perched on the riverbank like a castle out of an ancient movie, representing all the same things.

Safety. Fortification. If they could get to it.

With so much of Gabe’s concentration tied up in the dangers lurking behind them, Marci was the one who saw it first. She skidded to a stop and shrank back against him silently, clapping one hand over her mouth.

The man who stepped out of the side street wasn’t a man at all, but an empty husk. A puppet, one whose jerky steps mimicked human movement in a way that never failed to turn the stomach.

Popped. The guy’d been popped, which meant a demon was driving him. Recon, probably, since skins couldn’t get a view from the sky like their winged brothers. Tightening his arm around Marci’s waist, Gabe dragged her back behind a building. “They’re slow,” he whispered. “Clumsy. We can get past them or put them down.”

“They act as the demons’ eyes. I remember you saying that.” She worried her lower lip. “So…we move fast.”

His safe room would keep demons out, but with Marci’s power blunted by his mark, it would be easier if their enemy wasn’t sure where they’d gone to ground. “We move fast,” he agreed.
And make sure
no one’s watching where we end up.

She kept up, he had to give her that, and even when faced with the shambling creatures that may as well have been the walking dead, she remained silent.

Killing them was a mercy, and at least half the reason he veered off course. The first one went down silently, his jugular severed. Gabe spun and sank his knife into the chest of the second, a blank-eyed man who stank of the organic diesel fuel some of the haulers used to transport their equipment. Probably a crew that had gotten ambushed on the road and had paid for a moment’s inattention by being thrust from their bodies.

Mercy, to be sure, but enough self-interest to speed his steps until he was at Marci’s side again. Ahead lay the concrete foundation and two openings large enough to drive a truck through. “In there,” he managed, straining for breath. “Before any more show up.”

She hauled ass into the garage, her steps echoing in the empty, cavernous space. Only one door still stood, the one Trip had helped him secure. Beside it hung a faded yellow sign emblazoned with a distinctive symbol. “Bomb shelter?” she panted.

“From the last wars before the Fall.” He had to pry the silver casing open, but underneath was an old-fashioned biometric scanner. Pressing his palm to it popped open the door. “Down, quick.” She hurried down the stairs, sometimes taking them two at a time, but she managed not to fall. At the bottom, she leaned against the wall and pressed a hand to her side. “Is that it? Tell me that’s it.”

“That’s it.” The dull glow of the emergency lights along the stairs barely illuminated her face. He eased past her, groping along the wall until he found the control panel. “There are a few solar panels on the roof of the building. Since I’m not here that often, there’s plenty of energy to run the generators, as long as we don’t have to lay low for longer than a week.”

Marci rubbed her cheek on her forearm and grimaced at the dirt and blood smudged on her skin. “And a water system? Turns out, running for one’s life is a filthy activity.”

“You might have to wait twenty or thirty minutes for hot water…” He activated the overhead lighting, then the rest of the commands to bring his tiny shelter online. “But there’s a very nice shower.”

“I don’t care if it’s cold. I just want to be clean.” Adrenaline was starting to fade, leaving a sick feeling in his gut and exhaustion in his limbs. Bundling her off into the shower so he could spend a moment in quiet panic seemed like the best idea he’d had all day. Maybe, if he wasn’t looking at her, the need to strip her naked and map every curve of her body would abate.

And maybe the demons would all go back to wherever they’d come from and leave the world in peace. “Follow me, sweetheart.”

Marci stayed under the water for longer than she should have. It started to warm, stinging her scrapes, and she carefully catalogued every bump and bruise. She’d been hurt more than she’d realized. They’d been
attacked
, maybe almost died.

She’d never felt more alive.

She towel-dried her hair and dressed slowly. Then she sat on a couch in the shelter’s tiny living area and waited for Gabe to come out of the other shower room.

When he did, he was wearing nothing but a towel around his narrow hips. The careful speech Marci had been practicing evaporated along with what remained of her sense of self-preservation.

She rose and licked her lips. “I left,” she told him carefully. “I left the mill, and my life isn’t over. That wasn’t
it
.”

“Not in the least,” he agreed. “Your life’s just getting started.”
Just getting started.
What a shame that he spoke the truth. For so long, she’d done nothing but wait for her world to drop out from under her. Now it had, and all she wanted was to relish every moment of her free fall.

Marci tingled with anticipation and desire and
freedom
, with no room left over for doubt or hesitation.

She stepped close and slid her arms around his neck. “I’m tired of not living, Gabe. Of being so scared I can’t be anything else.”

Damp hair curled under her fingertips. His chest was broad and bore its share of scars, imperfections that would never appear in the network. But they were real, and so was he as he slid a hand to the small of her back and urged her closer. “Nothing to be scared of here, sweetheart. Just you and me.” The two of them, and no reason to stop. She stretched up and kissed him, soft and slow, like it was the first time. It may as well have been, because the simple touch shocked her with its intensity. No buzzing magic high this time, just his mouth over hers and his body…

Oh, his body.

Too soon he lifted his head, feathering teasing kisses along her jaw. “It is just you and me, right? Do we need to take a trip into the network and make sure you still want to take a ride if there’s no magic?” Marci shook her head. “Just us.” Water from the shower still clung to his skin, and it soaked through her shirt to heat and chill her at the same time. The thought of slipping into virtual reality, of losing that dichotomy of sensation, was unbearable.

He didn’t seem eager to force the issue. The hand at the small of her back fisted, dragging her upward with an insistence that belied his gentle, slow kisses. “If this is your first time outside the Global, you need to tell me.”

“I’m not a virgin, Gabe.” She’d had more sex inside the network, but she wasn’t completely inexperienced outside of it.

“Good.” His teeth closed on her ear.

Marci shuddered and scratched her nails down his back, all the way to the rough edge of the towel around his hips.

He reversed their positions easily, half lifting her before sinking down on the couch and dragging her astride him. It was so much like her fantasy, but she couldn’t ponder the implications of that, not when his towel parted a little and her inner thigh slid over his hair-roughened leg.

Gabe seemed fixated on her shirt—and getting her out of it. Both large hands curled in the fabric as he coaxed it up, swearing roughly when it caught on her elbow. “I’m supposed to be smooth,” he rasped, wrestling the fabric over her head. “I
am
smooth. Usually.” His eagerness was gratifying because it meant she wasn’t the only one losing control. “It doesn’t matter,” she whispered, dropping her lips to his shoulder. “Touch me.” He did, and skillfully, in spite of his protests. Soft at first, his fingertips exploring her back and arms, mapping her skin as he sought her mouth again. His kiss though—that was less gentle. Hungry, even, his tongue teasing her lips to part before stroking over hers.

Marci had no idea how long they stayed that way, with his hands tracing her body. Her head began to swim, but she wasn’t about to break the kiss and lose the hot glide of his tongue over hers.

That changed when she wiggled closer and the hard heat of his erection rubbed against her. She dropped her head back with a gasp and did it again.

“Keep wiggling.” Barely words—more of a growl, really—and his fingers bit into her hips to encourage her rocking movements as the heat of his mouth found the curve of her breast.

The shocks of pleasure that tingled up her spine left her restless. She moved with his hands but it wasn’t enough, so she slid her hands over his skin, explored the strong lines of his shoulders and back until he closed his lips around the tight bud of her nipple.

She slipped her fingers into his hair as a wave of dizzy need rocked her. “Lick me.” She wanted his tongue on her skin, maddening and soothing all at once.

He just laughed and scraped his teeth against her. “Where? So many places to choose from…” One hand eased from her hip to skate across her stomach, his thumb edging under her shorts. “So many places to touch you.”

One thing he hadn’t learned about her yet was that she liked to bite back. Marci leaned down, closed her teeth sharply on his earlobe and ground her hips hard against his.

That made him groan. His fingers closed around the waistband of her shorts and jerked, rough enough to rock her body as the fabric tore. “Fuck,” he whispered, pulling his hand away. “Marci, take your damn clothes off before I shred them.”

She climbed off his lap but hesitated, looking around. Finally, she jerked her head toward a door off the short hall. “Is that the bedroom? Yours, I mean. The one you use?” Something wild filled his eyes. “Yes.”

Marci swallowed hard and held out her hand. “Take me there, and you can do whatever, as long as you want. As slow as you want.”

He flowed from the couch, liquid grace in motion. His strong arms swept her up, urged her legs around his hips where they bumped the towel now hanging precariously from his waist. He lost it entirely within three steps, leaving it behind him as his quick strides devoured the hallway.

Naked, he pressed her back against the door, his body hot and hard against hers. “I won’t hurt you,” he ground out. “Tell me you believe that. Promise me.”

“You won’t.” She held him tight and brushed her lips over his cheek. “I believe you.” The door spilled open, and she landed on her back on the bed, a coarse blanket scratching at her skin.

He drew his hands down her body and stripped her shorts and underwear free in one insistent movement.

He looked even bigger looming over her like this, and Marci raised one leg without thought, rubbing the inside of her calf against his side.

Those too-blue eyes seemed darker now, hungry, as he dropped a hand to curl under her knee. “I’ve been imagining you like this since you slid all that pretty magic all over me.” She couldn’t help tensing. “I know.” Even though she’d sworn not to lie to herself, she’d almost forgotten what had drawn him to her in the first place.

“Do you?” He edged her up the bed and stretched out over her, his weight braced on his arms. “Before you laid your summoner mojo on me, I could write every last urge off as an itch. But you smoothed my edges ’til they were shiny, and I wanted you more than before, even when the magic was gone.”

“So you don’t need to duck into the network either? Make sure this whole thing isn’t about my summoner magic?”

“Not a chance.” When he rocked, the full, heavy length of his erection ground against her stomach.

“That’s all for you.”

Marci bit her lip to hold back a whimper. She longed to be confident enough to take control, to boldly bring Gabe pleasure and take her own in return.

She reached down and closed her hand around him. “Tell me what you imagined.” Groaning, he slid one arm under her and rolled them, leaving her sprawled against his chest. “Like this,” he murmured, urging her to sit up. Then his hand fell to cover hers, molding it to his rigid flesh. “You looked like you’d been trying to fade away. I thought you were a woman who needed to be seen.”

The way he stared at her made her heart race. Marci tightened her hand under his and stroked his cock. “I like having you see me.”

“You’re worth it.” His grip closed on her fingers, stilled her movements. “Worth watching. Did you touch yourself in the shower? Did you think about me and make yourself come?” Her cheeks heated, but she refused to look away or lie. “Yes. After what happened between us, I needed it.”

“So did I.” His free hand trailed up her inner thigh and slicked between her legs.

Every touch was skillful—
perfect
—and Marci’s legs trembled. She braced herself with one hand on Gabe’s chest, just to keep herself upright, and moved her hips over his hand. “Tell me that part too?”

“I wrapped my hand around my dick and thought about every way I’d take you.” He worked one finger into her, easing deeper as she squirmed. “Everything from sweet seduction to fucking so dirty you’d swear no one could bend that way outside the network.” His low words stoked the burning ache, and she moaned his name. “I almost came after you. Got on my knees for you.”

Another finger, and now he was stretching her, his thumb a taunting counterpoint against her clit.

“You know exactly what you want, don’t you, Marci?” His other hand squeezed hers again, jerking it over his cock. “Take it.”

Take it.
The words seemed so simple, but it meant she had the power, that he would not only satisfy her desires but relish doing so.