Accidentally Demonic (33 page)

Reaching out, Casey touched them without thinking, shivering at his wild, bucking response. Leaning forward, she licked one with a tentative tongue, not even knowing what prompted her. They were erotic to the taste, and when his tongue snaked out to touch hers, she rocked on him, groaning at the flaming pull between her legs.

His hands spanned her waist, driving her to accept all of him. The clap of their flesh, the hot thickness of him inside her, the deep moan from his chest, consumed her.

Wild abandon surpassed all modesty when she lifted her hips and took a final plunge, a quest for relief. His arms went around her completely, pressing their bodies together until they gyrated as one entity. His teeth grazed her shoulder, and in her daze of pleasure, the unbelievable desire to have them sink into her flesh was almost more than she could bear.

Clay roared his release in her ear, encouraging her to let go, too. The tightening of her belly, the clench of her thighs, wrought flashes of colored light as she came, pounding into him until she was replete.

Her hair stuck to her head with perspiration, her hands feebly clung to his biceps while they each found relaxation in each other’s arms. Clay’s lips went to her ear, caressing the outer shell, whispering his pleasure before he scooped her up and placed her on the bed.

Climbing in beside her, he pulled the covers over them, tucking them under her chin and spooning her from behind. That simple gesture made her heart throb. The security he brought with the shield of his chest against her back made her sigh with a contentedness that came from her soul.

Casey didn’t understand the emotion, and she wasn’t willing to investigate the whys or wherefores. Instead, she closed her eyes and burrowed against him with a deep satisfaction she wanted more of.

Over, and over, and over.

 

 

CASEY rolled to grab her phone. Seeing Wanda’s number left her debating whether she should pick it up. But she hadn’t talked to her in two days. If she didn’t answer, Wanda’d just barrel on over anyway. And catch her playing naked vampire games. “Hey, Wanda,” she mumbled, forcing an informal casualness to her tone.

“What are you doing?”

Soaking up the afterglow of a wild toss with a vampire. “I was sleeping.”

“Well, get up, and do it without the vampire.”

Casey glanced over at Clay, deep in vampire sleep. “Wanda, it’s six in the morning. Why am I getting up?” And what for? She had no job, no purpose.

“I want you to get up, get dressed, and meet us at a diner called the Grub Shack. It’s right down the road from you.”

“Why?”

“Because I said so.”

“Wanda, I’m tired. I don’t want the meatloaf and mashed potato blue-plate special. I want to sleep.”

“Casey!” she hissed into the phone. “Get down here now or suffer my wrath.”

Her wrath . . . “Wanda? What’s so damned important it can’t wait until later today—you know, like, after I’ve had a decent amount of sleep? Or have you forgotten I went on a little adventure called Hell?”

“I haven’t forgotten, and that’s why I’m calling. Now—”

The shuffle of the phone switching hands grated against her tired ears. “Casey? It’s Nina. Get the fuck down here so I can go home and go to fucking sleep. Do you have any idea how much blood laced with caffeine I had to drink to keep my eyes open this long? I’m cranky and goddamned bloated. Get down here now.”

The click of the phone and the resulting dial tone forced her from her bed. It had to be serious or Wanda would have just come to the apartment and forced her to listen to whatever this emergency was about. Throwing on some jeans and a sweater, she gave one last glance to Clay, smiling at his bizarre slumber.

This time, taking in his peaceful frame, it wasn’t her loins that burned uncontrollably. Her heart did, shifting in her chest with a flippy-floppy jump.

She turned away with a swift jerk of legs and feet, freaked out by this sudden warmth she experienced for a man who was, at best, a cranky pants wiseacre, and at his worst, Genghis Kahn new millennium style.

The unbelievable sex could not be the glue with which she mentally put some fake relationship together full of her wishful delusions.

Pulling her coat from the back of the chair, she tiptoed out of the bedroom and ran for the door, rushing to the elevator and out of the building.

Her feet carried her to a hurried halt in front of the Grub Shack, where Wanda paced by the bubbled, oval doors. She pushed it open, ushering Casey in with a firm hand.

Nina sat at a table not far from the diner’s entrance with a man. A very good-looking man who was as dark as she was. Their fingers entwined, and when Nina looked up at him to listen to something he said, she glowed. How odd to see the look of love, so blatant it made you look twice, on Nina’s face.

Nina
. . .

Yep. Jesus was due to arrive and order a cheeseburger deluxe at any minute.

Casey trudged behind Wanda with slow feet. Unsure she wanted to hear what they had to say. A powwow like this meant it wasn’t good. “Wanda? What’s going on, for Christ’s sake?”

Wanda scooted her along the aisle to the table. “Sit. We have to talk.”

The man rose, extending his hand to her, his handsome face pale and solemn. “Casey, I’m Greg Statleon. Nina’s mate—er, husband. Please, sit, and we’re sorry to have dragged you out of bed.”

“Not as sorry as I am. Jesus, this blood’s wigging me out,” Nina complained, her almond-shaped eyes wide and darting around the diner.

Casey shook his hand, sliding in beside Wanda, who looked harried and panicked, thus transferring her emotions to Casey, whose stomach took a dive. “What’s going on?”

Wanda slid an arm around her shoulders, pulling Casey’s head under her chin with a dramatic huff. “Do you remember the Band-Aid analogy I gave you when I had to tell you about your horns?”

Now her stomach roiled. “Uh-huh . . .”

Her sister stroked her head. “Figuratively speaking, we’re going to have another Band-Aid moment.”

Casey’s head popped up. “Okay—so just do it. Things seem to be on a downward decline—so give it to me straight.” Brave, brave words, Warrior Princess.

Greg spoke up then, his words so obviously measured. “Casey, what’s Clay told you about his former life? Or has he told you anything at all?”

Hah. Asking Clay anything personal was like trying to get an appointment with God. “He’s pretty tight- lipped, but I did manage to wrangle a few facts out of him. He was a Viking, turned in the late seven hundreds.”

“Did he mention how he ended up mated to Hildegard?”

She bristled. “Yeah, he told me all about Hildegard and how she forced him to mate with her when he was vulnerable in vampire sleep—which I thought was nuts because he’s so stubborn until he explained the possible narcolepsy thing. He said next to nothing can wake him when he’s in the later stages of it.” Not even a life-force-sucking bitch like that blond nightmare.

“That’s true—his vampire sleep isn’t on par with the rest of us. Both Nina, Wanda, and I can stall it, if necessary. It isn’t easy, but it’s manageable. But did he tell you why Hildegard force-mated with him?”

“Are you kidding?” Disbelief was the clear emotion lacing her tone. “Getting him to talk about Hildegard is like calling up the White House and asking for the president’s home phone number. He didn’t go into details, and to push Clay about her is always dangerous, and usually ends with him more angry and impatient than he was to begin with. I might as well just save myself the trouble and throw myself off a cliff. It might be less painful.” Excruciating was more like it. The more closemouthed he was, the more eaten up with curiosity she became.

Wanda’s cheeks puffed outward. “Well, here’s the scoop about the union in Hell. Hildegard bartered for her soul. Apparently, and it comes as no surprise, she’s pretty vain. As a human, she was getting long in the tooth. Back in the day, you married very young, and she wasn’t getting any younger. So her father planned to marry her off to someone she didn’t much want to be married to. To save herself, she sold her soul to not only get out of marrying this guy her father’d picked for her, but to retain her youth and beauty. When she found out she’d been tricked into selling her soul, and that she’d be young and beautiful, all right, it just wouldn’t be here on Earth, she found a solution.”

Oh, Jesus Christ in a miniskirt. This woman was a maniac. “I know that much. Clay was the solution. Because if she drinks from him once a year, she’s drinking from someone who has eternal life, and that means she does, too.”

Looking at Nina, you’d never guess she was a woman with balls the size of church bells that clanged when she walked. Her face was softer right now, even in the harsh glare of the diner—softer and riddled with sympathy, leaving Casey almost breathless and definitely panicked. “Did you ever wonder why Clay stays mated to her instead of doing something drastic like vampiricide?” Nina asked.

Casey nodded with a slow movement. “Yes. I even asked him. He said it became about besting her. I bought it because men can be pretty competitive, and he’s not exactly the kind of guy who’d lie down and play dead. Figuratively speaking, of course.” And now, from the looks on their faces, she was feeling like a stupidhead for falling for it.

Greg grunted his disapproval at Clay’s predicament. “He can be very competitive. You should see him slaughter my ass at golf, but if you know anything about Clay, you know he’s not the kind of man who wouldn’t rather go to his grave than be mated to someone he despises.”

Clay played golf? Did the wonders never cease? Golf was such a placid, structured game—with plaid pants . . . Clay was anything but placid. “I totally agree. He’s stubborn and pigheaded and difficult, all while he cracks jokes. Sorry. I know he’s your best friend, but if that’s the case, then you know I speak the truth. He’s the most difficult, domineering man I’ve ever met, and then in the next breath a real wisecracker. He’s like the Two Faces of Eve, the Knuckle Dragger version.”

Greg’s laughter filled the empty diner, rich and full. “Yep. That’s Clay. So then a man that stubborn has to be sticking around for something, wouldn’t you agree?”

Casey winced. It was another woman. Fuck it all if she didn’t suspect it. All those hushed phone calls he’d never answer in front of her. He might be stubborn, but that didn’t mean he was honorable—so while she’d been a convenient orifice, his heart, or whatever was in his chest, belonged to someone else he couldn’t nail because he’d be shunned. The motherfucker. She tightened her jaw, reaching for the glass of water by Wanda, and took a gulp, hoping it would douse her flaming, irate gut.

“It’s not what you’re thinking, kiddo,” Nina said.

“Then what the fuck is it?” she whisper-yelled, slamming her fists down on the table as she leaned forward, her eyes darting about the diner.

Wanda’s voice hitched when she said, “A child.”

Her temper went from a hundred to zero. “A child?”

Nina’s head bobbed up and down. “Yep. Clay’s got a kid.”

Casey reached for the paper napkin and dipped it into the water, wiping her forehead with it. A child. She turned to Wanda, confused. “Remember our ‘how to be a vampire’ conversation? I thought you said reproduction was impossible for vampires?”

“It is, honey. Here’s how it went down. When Hildegard made the moves on Clay, he was staunchly against it. He really was willing to go to his grave before mating with her. But here’s the catch. When he was turned, so was his child—the vampire who turned him obviously had some serious vengeance on his mind.”

Casey’s throat began to clench. “But wait, I thought you guys had strict rules about this turning thing?”

Greg’s eyes held hers. “That evolved over time, Casey. And that rule does exist in most clans nowadays. But there was a time when it was like the Wild West. There were very few who felt the way we do back then, but they existed and Clay was one of them. When he joined with them, it was under the strict rules that he’d never harm anyone the way he was harmed. But at the time of his forced mating with Hildegard, he had no idea a child existed.”

Her stare was blank. Oh, sweet Mary, Mother of God.

“Clay thought his entire family was killed during the Viking raid he was turned in. But that wasn’t the case. This plan to snare Clay had been in motion for far longer than anyone suspected. Hildegard stole the child during the raid, and kept it hidden from Clay. When the time came to mate with him, and he refused, rather than using the child as a bargaining chip, which almost makes more sense if you’re a greedy bitch like she is, she used it
afterward
—to ensure Clay wouldn’t do exactly what you thought he’d do, being the kind of man he is because, Hildegard needed him to stick around. Hildegard bet on the fact that Clay wouldn’t find a way out of his immortality because he had a child, and she was right. No way would Clay ever leave one of his own if he could help it.”

Holy deception. Fighting the rising tide of her anger, Casey focused on control. Her heart ached, clenching so tight, she almost couldn’t ask her next question. “So where is the child?”

“With Hildegard.”

Casey was on her feet, pushing her way out of the booth the moment she heard the words. “Then let’s go get it. The hell I’ll let that psychopath hurt an innocent child! In fact, I’ll kill the whore myself. There’s no rule about a demon killing a demon. And even if there is, I don’t give a shit. Any law that says you can’t jack up the bitch that’s holding your kid hostage is bullshit!” She looked at them all, unmoving. Angry bolts of lightning in all shapes and colors seized her. “What—is—wrong—with—you? There’s a child at stake!”

“Casey, calm down. Now, before all of the Grub Shack is ablaze,” Wanda urged with a harsh whisper. “Wait—sit and listen, Case. Here’s the rest of the story. The child hasn’t been harmed. In fact, she’s rather unaware of what’s gone on all these years. She doesn’t know Hildegard’s mated to her father, and she sees Clay on a regular basis. Hildegard, in all of her fucked- up-ed-ness, was at least decent about that much. The girl only knows she lives in a big house with a father who travels often and a friend named Hildegard who pops in to check on her every now and then. Not so uncommon in this day and age, and perfectly plausible to a kid. Especially one who’s been around as long as she has.”