Awakened by a Demoness (8 page)

Asteria looked over his head at Rey.

His cold eyes chilled her to the bone.

He disappeared.

She stared at the spot where he had been as her hand fell away from Alyx’s jaw and blinked hard, feeling off again. Odd.

As if she had done something wrong.

She rebounded quickly, leaning back and managing a smile for Alyx that she didn’t quite feel. She listened to him prattling about all the arrangements he was making, but her thoughts were with an infuriating angel and how he had made her feel by looking at her that way and leaving her the second he had the information he had come here for.

Her odd feeling was his fault.

It was because he had teased her about the men back at the fae town in Fort William and her methods of getting information. He had messed with her head, making her feel guilty of all things.

She tried to focus on Alyx but it was impossible, and that wouldn’t do. The angel was getting dangerously under her skin and it was high time that she remembered why she was here and that it was her life on the line.

She couldn’t fail this time.

She looked out of the window to her left at the haphazard roofs of the fae town and denied the urge to use her senses to locate Rey.

It was for the best.

It was better if she avoided him and got her mind back on her mission, and that was exactly what she was going to do.

She was going to get the jump on him tomorrow by cutting the half-breed off before she entered the town.

She would complete her mission. The Devil would be happy with her and wouldn’t kill her.

She would return to Hell.

And she would never see Rey again.

Rey did his best to keep his eyes off Asteria as she bounced up the stairs ahead of him, a spring in her step as she closed in on the male witch they were here to question. She turned at the top and disappeared from view until he hit the landing and looked to his left, finding her almost at the open door near the end of the hall.

Her tartan mini skirt swayed with each step she took, her long slender legs carrying her at a quick pace towards her next victim.

The poor witch wasn’t going to know what had hit him.

Rey still wasn’t sure himself.

She peeked around the corner and he finally caught up with her, spotted the insipid male occupying the library, and barely stifled his urge to curl his lip at the wretch. Asteria didn’t help his mood as she bounded into the room and started flirting with the witch.

He did his best to filter her out and focus on the male as she cleared a space and then sat on the table beside the one called Alyx. It was difficult when Asteria’s voice filled the room, her presence sucking the air from it and pulling his focus back to her.

His skin prickled, heat washing over it beneath his t-shirt as he recalled the way her vivid blue eyes had roamed his bare chest, leaving her mark on him. Her words swam in his mind, jumbling together, interlaced with the things she had said to him when they had been alone in the street.

She thought him incredible.

He shoved that out of his head, but it snuck back in, drifting around it, constantly taunting him.

She thought him incredible and it had troubled her. It troubled him too. Not because she thought such a thing, but because he felt attracted to her, had experienced a flush of desire on hearing those words leave her red lips.

He wasn’t sure how to handle the sudden spark of need. She was a demon. Evil.

He looked at her as he rounded the rectangular oak table, unable to tear his gaze away. Was she evil?

She barely seemed that way to him.

She could be mischievous and naughty, and he suspected she had some violent tendencies, but on the whole he couldn’t bring himself to label her as evil, not as he had been trained to view all demons.

If he forced himself to ignore what he knew she was, a demon, and viewed her actions and her objectively based on the things she had revealed to him in the times they had been together, she didn’t come out any more wicked than most fae he had met, and even some angels.

Rey huffed and fingered the spine of one of the leather-bound books on the crammed shelves.

He wanted to feel repelled by her, repulsed and sickened, and there had been times when he had almost convinced himself that he was, but then she would do something like twirl her hair around her nimble fingers or say something that didn’t fit with the demon mould, and he would find himself attracted to her.

It was troubling considering the reason he was here—to apprehend a half-breed.

It was doubly troubling considering that he had never felt attracted to anyone before. He had lived for nearly five centuries without experiencing any sexual urges and now he kept feeling them.

For a demoness.

It was dangerous, whatever this was.

The sudden hunger to use his Echelon gift on her that had come over him when the Fourth Commander had teleported into the town was proof of that.

He hadn’t been able to stop the mark on his wrist from activating, and had barely leashed the urge to lay his hand on her. One touch. That was all it would take. One touch and she would be gravely injured, or worse.

He wasn’t sure why he had tried to make her run from him in that moment.

The desire had gone through him so sharply, so strongly, that he hadn’t been able to deny it. He had desperately wanted her away from him, out of the firing line.

The cross on his wrist burned again, a low throbbing that bothered him. He rubbed it with his left thumb as he perused the books, diligently keeping his eyes off Asteria and picking out only the male witch’s responses.

It became impossible to ignore her when she moved, touching the male’s jaw, and glanced his way.

He looked across at her and something more than his wrist burned as he saw her leaning close to the male, her hands on him, her voice a low seductive whisper.

Rey clenched his jaw and his fists, fighting the urge to tear her away from the male.

He blamed it on her, using his lead to get information, ruining his investigation and interfering in it.

Even when part of him knew that was a lie.

The male mentioned a time the half-breed would make an appearance in the town.

Rey didn’t hang around to see the climax of Asteria’s flirting. The moment she looked his way, he teleported out of the building and straight to his room in the black tavern next door.

He paced the small room, swift strides shaking the worn dark wooden floor, causing several boards to creak beneath his weight as he tried to work off some energy to stop him from going back to the coven and attacking Asteria.

And the witch.

Images of them together taunted him, the male replacing him in the visions he’d had based on the things she had said to him, picturing her wrapped around him, her heels pressing into that male’s backside instead.

He growled and swore an oath, and turned fast towards the wall. His fist slammed into it, meeting solid stone beneath the blue plaster, and pain blazed along his bones, a fiery bolt of lightning. He breathed hard, his fist lodged in the dented plaster, and fought to rein in his fury.

It was her fault.

Everything was her fault.

She was affecting him even though he had vowed it wouldn’t happen again. He was stronger than this. Whatever urges she stirred in him, whatever false desire she had implanted in him, it ended now. He was done with her.

He pulled his hand from the wall, grimaced as he opened his fist and his fingers ached, and huffed as he strode to the double bed against the opposite wall and flopped onto his back on the dull blue duvet. He looked off to his right, to the window there, and sighed as his hand throbbed. The pain slowly faded, but the ache in his chest remained.

Rey exhaled hard and sank into the bed, emptying his mind and shutting down his unruly emotions, putting everything back into place. Just the way he liked it.

Tomorrow, he would intercept the half-breed and his mission would be done.

He would return to Heaven.

And he would never see Asteria again.

He closed his eyes to sleep.

But Asteria was waiting for him in his dreams.

Asteria was dreaming. A scorching-hot one. Just the way she loved them. Only this time it felt more wicked than usual, hotter than Hell on a summer’s day, because the male slowly kissing his way down her left thigh as he pulled her stocking down had something no male she had been with before had possessed.

Huge pearly white wings.

They arched from his back, feathered monstrosities that gradually swept down to rest on the dark purple covers of the double mattress. Like a hawk’s covered its prey, his covered her, and the way his green eyes glowed with gold fire as he lifted his head and gazed up the length of her body at her left her feeling that he was going to eat her whole.

She shuddered as he lowered his head and pressed a soft kiss to her inner thigh, his breath hot on her skin.

Even in sleep she was aware of how wrong this was, this hunger she felt for him and the thrills that chased through her as she watched him, felt his strong hands on her and his mouth brushing across her flesh.

By the Devil.

She couldn’t bite back the moan as he lightly skimmed his hand down her calf, teasing her with the feel of her own stockings as he pushed them lower.

Something told her she wasn’t in control of this dream, something that jangled warning bells in her head that she couldn’t quite get herself to hear.

If this had been her dream, she would still have her boots on, ready to press into his buttocks when he took her, spurring her stallion on.

She had entered the dream without them, had already been half-naked on the bed with Rey looming over her, the delicious honed muscles of his torso on display as he supported himself away from her.

Her naughty angel went to work on her other stocking, his fingers black magic as he stroked the light fabric down her right thigh, his lips worshipping every inch of skin he exposed. When she realised he was tracing the swirls and spikes of her tattoo with his mouth and his tongue, she moaned and shuddered, could almost feel the ink on her skin and chart the path he would take. He followed every red arc, tracking back whenever he reached a point in the design to trace it to the next curve, as if he wanted to memorise it.

She had caught him studying the design a few times, had seen the intense curiosity in his gaze, and he seemed as fascinated by it in her dream as he was in reality. Why? Were all angels ink-free? Was it taboo for one to have body art?

She raised her hands above her head, buried them into the pillow and held on for dear life as he moved to his right, to the delicate and sensitive skin of her inner thigh, and traced the point of one arc with his tongue.

A moan bubbled up her throat and slipped from her lips, the sound so wanton and drenched with need that it shocked her and seemed to surprise him too as he lifted his head and looked at her again. Those gold eyes devoured her, sent another white-hot thrill blasting through her, and it was hard to resist the temptation to grab his damned wings and haul him up to her for a kiss.

She managed to find the will to remain where she was, her hands twisting the rich violet pillowcases into her fists. Her emerging black claws shredded the worn material, filling the room with the sound of ripping, and by the Devil it was wrong of her to want to hear that same sound from a different source.

She wanted to tear his jeans off with her fangs.

How would the big brash angel react to that?

The heat in his steady gaze penetrated her, warming her down to her bones and leaving her at his mercy, too filled with anticipation about what he would do next to move a single muscle.

She lay there, held by his commanding gaze, desperate to know his plans for her.

Would he be a tender lover?

A rough one?

She wasn’t sure which she would prefer, was ninety percent certain that either would be fine with her, as long as he moved and kept touching her, kept sweeping those firm lips over her skin and worshipping her.

His eyes darkened and lowered to her corset as he dropped his head again, sweeping his mouth over her thigh as he removed her other stocking. He tossed it aside without taking his eyes off her breasts. She burned right down to her core, belly quivering at the hunger in his eyes, the way they were focused on her even as he kissed her thigh and tongued her overheating flesh. She had never had a male look at her like that, hadn’t realise how sensual and erotic it could be to have one stare at her with such need in his eyes, such fierce and beautiful need, as if he couldn’t live without this. Without her.

Those golden irises darkened further. Narrowed.

What was her naughty angel thinking?

She squawked as he grabbed her ankles and dragged her sharply down the bed towards him at the same time as he rose up onto his knees. He ended wedged between her thighs, and her skirt ended around her waist.

He looked down. His lips parted. A little noise she found she liked escaped him, somewhere between a moan and a frustrated growl.

He released her right ankle, rubbed that hand over his mouth, dragging at his lower lip as he stared at her black panties.

Asteria waited, her breath lodged in her throat, unable to move or find her voice as he stared down at her panties, a look of fierce longing on his handsome face.

When he remained there for more than a minute, a statue frozen in time, she lost patience and took her hands from under the pillow. Her moving seemed to startle him into action, because he flashed his teeth at her together with a wicked scowl that only cranked her temperature higher.

He released her other ankle and reached for her panties, his hands visibly trembling as he neared her hips.

Asteria found it adorable.

She could almost feel his nerves battling his need, the war right there in his eyes as he edged his hands towards her and swallowed hard. Sure, she knew how he felt. She was a demon. He was an angel. This was definitely not the sort of thing they should have been doing together, but it was only a dream.