Demon Chained (Shadowfae Chronicles) (5 page)

Her body heat soaks him, delicious. Gavain can smell her, ash and roses, and his own fairy blood leaks into his sweat in sympathy, pleasuring his pores like a rough caress. Desire awakens. He fights the need to drag her onto him, smear her face in it, kiss it clean. Delilah is a demon, a temptress. He knows he doesn't really want her. It's all a trick.

The wine seeps into his blood, and the air shimmers infra-red, heat haloes flickering like fairy fire. Sounds veer into sharp focus. He can hear Delilah breathing, the blood sliding under her skin, the flow of digestive juice in her guts. The space around him swells with sighs, gasps, moans, giggles.

"Come on, Gavain. Show me your dreams," Delilah whispers, and syrupy fingers of demon persuasion slide into his mind. His nipples hurt now, rasping against his shirt, and his cock strains, fury and disgust fuelling his need. No. Won't think of him. Won't give her my fantasies. Won't think how it'd be, his hands on me, touching me, his hard body sliding over mine, that silky hair drifting over my skin . . . fuck, no.

Gavain shudders, his fist shaking in Delilah's coarse hair, and he tries to shove her away but it feels too good, too real.

She slides a bony hand onto his shoulder, and glides hot lips along his cheek to his ear. "Imagine it. If you weren't so pathetic and needy and helpless, he might notice you, Gavain, he might even touch you if you didn't blurt out every weak and meaningless thing that springs to your mind."

Her tongue flickers over the point at the top of Gavain's ear, and his balls tighten, treacherous heat growing. His veins swell. The images are too familiar, too well-imagined, and Delilah's seeing every caress, every lick and kiss, the ripe taste of Tam's skin, the rich dark scent of his hair, he sucks my bottom lip into his mouth and kisses me and says—

Fuck. Not here. "Stop it. Get out of my head."

Delilah clicks her tongue. "Never going to happen, is it? When's the last time you took the initiative in anything? You really think you'll ever get him to notice you?"

"Stop it, you bitch."

Her hand creeps into his lap, her palm grazing his swollen cock through tight denim. His breath shortens, and tension jerks in his balls, unbearable. He grits his teeth, snagging stinging edges on his tongue, but she strokes him and he wants it, wants to keep Tam in his mind with this searing relief so near.

Her burning lips slide over his. "I can give you that, Gavain. I can make him love you. I can make him hot for you." Somehow she's got his jeans open and her hand around his cock, and she strokes him, squeezes him, dragging the hot skin up and down, harder, faster. "Make him beg you to fuck him, would you like that? He'll come around your cock and sigh for more. Milk you inside him until you fill him with your horrid fairy come. Imagine how that'll feel . . ."

Heat slashes through his body, spills over, an uncontrolled rush. Throbbing relief, wringing him out like a twisted towel, he gasps and he's just come in her hand and sweet Jesus, is there any low place he won't go?

She wipes her hand on his jeans, and sneers. "Pity it'll never happen without me. You've never stood up for anything in your life."

"Screw you." He's beyond blushing or dignity, but his cheeks still burn as he scrambles to put himself away, catch his breath. He shouldn't let her insults cut him, but they do.

They do. Because he knows she's right.

Truth: Tam has principles, morals, a good heart. Gavain has none of them. Nothing that Tam could ever want.

Delilah pouts. "But it's such a simple thing I want from you, poor child. Take control. Wouldn't that feel good? Do one little favor for me, and he'll be yours. Is that too much to ask?"

Temptation trails bright fingers over Gavain's weary soul, and he curses. No good can come of this. But still the words creep to his lips. "Tell me what it is, first."

She laughs. "You know it doesn't work like that. Do you want him or not?"

Gavain turns to the bar and closes his eyes, shutting out the drunken glare for a moment.

Oh, God, yes. With every weak, stupid, fae-mad cell in his body.

He shakes his head, unbelieving, and gives in with a helpless shrug.

Delilah smiles, and blows him a kiss from a purple fingernail. Lightning crackles around her throat, a distant echo of hell. "That's my fairy. Now listen carefully."

***

Chapter Five

Kane sips his green drink, tart lime sugar aching his throat, and watches the pretty fae-struck boy walk away from Delilah. Such a tortured child. Kane can smell the self-disgust from here, salty and bitter like the bloodstained fluid the boy just spilled over her hand.

And Delilah just stood there, smiling sweetly like a schoolgirl, pretending she hadn't crossed the line. Nasty, rude woman. He hadn't asked her here. She should have waited for him to ask first. That was the rule. This is Kane's city, and she isn't welcome. Especially not now she's taken over the DiLuca clan, Kane's gangland enemies. She's plotting mutiny, playing sly games behind his back. He won't stand for it.

Gritty drugsmoke drifts over his face, some skinny girl next to him smoking a joint. She eyes him sleepily, and clumsily drags dirty blond hair out of her face, tidying herself up. She holds the twisted cigarette out to him. "Wanna share, mister?"

The rotten smell of sickness twists in his nose, the gristly black tumor in her guts that'll kill her before the month is out, and underneath it the bright whiff of the few-day-old child she doesn't know she carries. Kane's nails blacken, and he washes fizzy lime around in his mouth to clean the taste away. "No. You keep it."

She edges closer, shiny desperation buried deep in her eyes. "We can fuck, if you want. I'm cheap."

Cool yellow flame licks his wrist. Tempting. But he doesn't feel like it, not tonight. Not a mortal. Not the naïve questions, the dull sheen of disgust he can't suppress, the part where she'll bite her tongue and scream and beg
no, don't, what the fuck was that?

A cold sigh crackles his lungs, and he digs a fistful of crumpled cash from his pocket and tosses it onto the bar.

She goggles, and drags hard on her joint. "Mister, I don't do nothing special—"

"Take the night off. Go home. Buy yourself something nice." They like that. Owning nice things. That part, he understands.

She stares, her lips stretching, and he flashes her a cold glimpse of truth, images stark in her mind like autopsy photographs. "Go on. You've got three weeks to enjoy it."

Tears dribble onto her sunken cheeks. Her bruised ankles buckle, and she snatches the money and stumbles away.

Another dead mortal, wasted. Tedious. Even the bright sugar drink bores him tonight, and on the floor around his stool, the ash of his discomfort dusts a shimmering white halo.

He taps his nails on the bar, listless. The glass dents, a starburst crack splitting a few inches wide. He should go home. But home is silent, empty. Empty makes him hurt. Nasty, bare, alone, that bad-tasting air that numbs his guts and litters his pillow in the night with diamantine tears.

He'd come for the smoke girl, a glittering distraction, an uneasy anomaly in his dark dominion. A djinni. Even the word is odd, anachronistic. Her very presence is . . . irrational. Unfathomable. Such things must be collected, studied, guarded jealously. Hoarded, so no enemies can reach them. And then unleashed, when the time is right.

Static crackles in his hair at a shift of air pressure, and Delilah slides feline wrists over his shoulders from behind, purring deep in her throat. "Hello, sweetie. Fancy us meeting like this."

False sweetness coats him like honey. His nails judder and lengthen into claws, the memory of the ashen kisses they'd once shared bright and hateful in his mouth. He'd defeated her, chained her to burning rocks in hell to be devoured for defying his authority. But factions in the demon court had begged for her release. He'd relented, and now here she is again, flaunting herself. Daring him.

He grits sharpening teeth, resisting a feral impulse to tear out Delilah's slender brown throat. He has court rules to observe, even if she chooses to ignore them. Until she learns her place, he'll just keep pushing her under. Kane is the prince, and there's only room for one. His big brother taught him that, and big brother is two centuries dead.

"That wasn't polite, what you did to that boy."

"But it was fun." The demoness curls her body against his back, warm, lithe, needy.

Horrid, presumptuous infant. Like a bug. Stomp, crush, squirt, good riddance. Come back in a couple of millennia when you're fully grown.

But loneliness—if that's what it is—slides cold longing into his blood, and he slurps the last of his sweet lime drink and pushes the bottle away. He slides off his stool, turns to face her without breaking her embrace. "You shouldn't tease them like that. They get indignant after a while."

Green flame flickers in her darkwine curls, glints in her saucy emerald eyes. "Like you don't tease yours. Stealing some solitary girl's bauble, indeed. Since when did we play for such small stakes? And that delicious dead one of yours—"

"—is resourceful and clever and has everything to lose. Whereas your pretty blood child—"

"—is in love, poor thing." She smirks, twisting long dark fingers up to play with Kane's hair. "They do such crazy things for love. I wager mine will get the bauble first."

Ash stings his scalp at her touch. He lets his glance slide over her face, and crusts her dark lashes with ice crystals as a warning. "Do you even know what that bauble is, little girl? It could bite you."

She laughs, dusting the frost away with a blink, but a line digs between her brows. "I know you want it. That's enough for me."

Lies, warm on his tongue like a lover's groan, the fruity scent of fear ghosting across his palate. Only scared girls lie. He likes her better scared. "Don't provoke," he murmurs. "You can't beat me."

She leans in to slide her lips across his, and his mouth stings with charcoal. "Can't I? What a shame. Can I scratch you, instead? Bite you? Suck you?" She worms her tongue between his lips, tempting him with a flicker of forked scales.

His flesh reacts, a rush of greedy blood. Arrogant. Unworthy. Disgusting. But maybe better than nothing, tonight. Humans are so fragile. He needn't hold back anything with this one.

He bites down, jagged teeth growing. Fiery demon blood slicks his mouth, and when she jerks away he pulls her in, her soft shoulders slicing easily under his claws like hot chocolate cake. He smears her blood onto her lips, drinking in the salty tinge of fear on her breath. Her breasts press into him, quivering, nipples tight. Hunger flushes him to full arousal, and his hair springs a foot longer, deep blue ends curling on his chest.

Delilah parts her lips, both a smile and a murmur of pleasure. "Maybe . . . swallow you? How does that sound?"

"Like you're asking for a lesson, little girl."

A passionate sigh. "So teach me."

Kane grips her wrists and lets the change roast his skin. Invigorating. His fingers stretch to their full multi-jointed length. His hellburnt palms rasp on her soft forearms, delicious, and his voice crisps to a growl. "I'll teach you to scream first, you petty little maggot. Then bleed. Then beg. Then we'll see who swallows whom."

Her arms tremble in his hands, anticipation or fear. "So when can we start?"

"When I feel like it." The flavor of burnt flesh twinges his nose, crisp and hot. He can smell her sex, slick and warm. Acid bile froths up in his guts. Some girls smell so sweet, fresh and earthy like flowers. Delilah just makes him want to chew her throat open and rub his face in the mess.

Boring. Desperately ordinary. Unworthy of him.

He lets his demon skin freshen and heal, his azure-stained hair shrinking back to golden blond. "And I don't feel like it. Piss off."

He shoves her away and stalks into the dark. Angry scarlet sparks shower around him, viridian fury bleeding thick into his nails. Overhead, a mirror shatters, raining glittery shards. His cock aches, needy. Sorry, now, that he disposed of that dying girl. He slams his fist into the shiny wall. Black blood spews around embedded glassy fragments. Around him, people stop talking. He drags his hand from the hole, blood-splashed glass crunching.

A dark-haired child with a metal stud in his lip and paint-smeared grey eyes inches closer. "You okay, man? That's some crazy shit you're on."

Kane glares, and the smudged boy's hair singes, smoke drifting.

The boy licks his lips, speculative. "You should stop that bleeding."

Kane clenches his bloody hand, and the cuts seal and shrink to nothing.

"Holy shit. That's cool." The boy reaches out a hesitant hand to touch, a sly glance up through curled lashes.

A volunteer. Soft, young, fearless. Acceptable. Kane blinks, slamming out a wave of demonic compulsion, and the air shimmers black with lustful heat. "Want to see it again?"

The boy flushes and stares, breathless. He gulps, spit gushing onto his chin. "Oh, God. I mean, sure. Absolutely. Whatever you want."

Kane grips the boy's slim wrist and tugs him back into the dark. "Then come here, and get on your knees."