Hell's Phoenix (22 page)

Madison gave her demon a mental smile.
In moments, we become one
.

“I want Nix out of here.”

“He stays and watches.” Micah tucked matted hair behind her ears, and brushed wads of it over her shoulders to tangle in a bloody heap down her back. “It’s not like he’s never seen you naked.”

“He hasn’t. His hand was down my pants in the hotel room.” She looked up at him and fought the flush that threatened to creep up her neck and into her cheeks.

Micah shrugged, but smiled a grin of supreme satisfaction. “Then he’ll see all in a moment.”

Madison suspected stripping would be inconsequential to what the seraph would accomplish.

She met Micah’s eyes as his fingers curled around the edge of her blood-coated blouse. Slowly, he peeled her garment upward, his knuckles skimming her flesh. Nix slammed his hand down on Micah’s wrist and halted the progress of her disrobing.

The men stared at one another and some strange energy vibrated between them. Very visible energy. She guessed a silent, unnecessary testosterone war ensued.

Nix watched her. “Is this what you want, Mads?”

Biting back a laugh wasn’t easy, but she managed. When had she ever wanted what Micah planned for her? Every action she took in Hell was for Nix and not for her own good. But admitting that would hinder saving him.

She focused on Nix’s eyes and settled for the other truth. “I want his seraph.”

Nix’s hand shifted from Micah’s wrist and wrapped around her throat, high enough to tilt her head backward. Silence—except for the unending agony of souls—shifted among the trio. The Ark of Heaven peered at her as if he could discern the truth of her words.

“Do you wish for him to undress you?” Nix demanded.

“You go too far, Phoenix.”

Madison chuckled and shoved Micah’s hands off her clothing. She wrapped her fingers around Nix’s wrist, applied pressure and twisted until he grunted, but gained freedom from his hold.

“Do I wish for Micah to undress me?” She laughed again and took several steps backward. “I don’t give a fuck who undresses me, so long as I receive his seraph.” With a quick tug, she yanked her shirt over her head. “You wanna see me naked, Nix, baby?” She tilted her head to the side and shifted her gaze to Micah. “How about you, sweetheart? Naked, so you can stuff me full of your angel juice.”

She placed a finger beneath the catch on the front of her bra. With a twist, the hook gave free. She tossed the lace aside and resisted the urge to cover her breasts. Submitting to Micah’s slow perusal was a feat in self-control. She averted her focus from Nix. She didn’t want to know if he ogled her the way Micah did. After shimmying out of her panties, she stepped backward into the shower stall.

Before she gave much thought about what she touched, she grabbed the finger bone and twisted the handle to hot. Water turned to scalding burst and rained from the skull head, dousing her in a clear, cleansing stream.

“You’ve lost a few pounds.” Micah entered the shower behind her. “You’re gorgeous as always, kitten.”

“I’ve been training to defeat you.” She ignored the compliment on purpose.

He smiled and with the tip of his finger circled her belly button. “How’d that work out for you, kitten?”

She shivered back the surge of arousal his soft touch elicited.

Nix joined them and she refused to look above his chin or below his throat. A tic in his cheek indicated his jaw was locked tight and he was probably grinding his teeth.

Micah’s tongue flicked over a nipple, yanking her attention back to him. With a gasp, she jerked his head back by his hair.

“I’m not playing your sexual games. Give me your seraph now.”

“Eventually you will.” He smiled and the certainty she read on his face had her looking away. But meeting Nix’s hooded eyes was worse.

Micah discarded his clothing slowly while she watched. And she took in every detail, admiring the clean, masculine lines of her husband. Muscles an underwear model would envy. Her inspection slid across his rippled abs as he released his jeans, shoved them down. His flaccid penis lay in a bed of blood-covered blond hair. On her honeymoon, she’d been awed and frightened by his erection. She was no longer impressed. For the first time she realized he had no hair anywhere except on his head and at the base of his dick.

“I want your angel.”

“Beg your pardon?” Micah kicked his jeans aside.

“I want you in your angel form while you feed me.”

He answered her with an unblinking stare. She gave a mental shrug and turned into the hot spray of water. The substance slid over her body like liquid fingers.

Dear God, if she got out of this alive, she’d never be able to look Nix in the eye again. Not even one day’s passage in Hell and she was already humiliated. No telling what Nix had endured these last four months.

Micah touched the tattoo on her lower back. “Interesting tattoo choice. What is its importance?”

She’d forgotten about it and stiffened. “No significance.”

“It’s a dragon. Do you realize dragons were once practiced by dark magic?”

“So?”

“Wondered if you knew?”

“Why should I know that? I’ve been running, not dabbling in mythology.”

“Not mythology, kitten.” His smile softened his features. “We’re going to watch Phoenix bathe first. You want to help him, kitten?”

“No.” And she wouldn’t watch him bathe either.

Micah leaned against the wall, crossed his arms over his rippled chest, and met her stony gaze. “Watch.”

“No.”

“You don’t wish to see the body of the man who just had his fingers inside you? Had his messian inside you?”

The visual those words evoked was too erotic to contemplate for long. She shook her head and whispered, “No.”

“Phoenix, at your leisure.” Micah surprised her by not pushing the issue, but he watched her, stoic, as if contemplating his next move. “Our turn,” he said a moment later, much too soon.

Nix couldn’t have bathed properly in that short amount of time.

“You go ahead. I’ll wait until you’re finished.” Madison folded her arms over her breasts, hiding her nipples. A crooked grin suggested he suspected she affected the posture to hide her nudity. She glared at him, daring him to start a war with her stance.

Instead of getting the fight she anticipated, Micah shrugged and began to soap up his body. Madison turned away and he chuckled at her reticence.

He took longer to wash the blood away. Thank God for small, hellish favors. But when he finished, his arm circled her waist and dragged her into the spray, her back against his chest. Hot water hit her head and coursed down her body as her sights landed on Nix standing in front of her, a few feet away.

Tattoos flanked his right arm and the dragon head rested over his right shoulder. Where was that damn dragon that was supposed to save his life? Asleep on the job?

Finally she got to see the ink that’d fascinated her for so long. His nipples were erect and—she snatched her focus back to his face. She wouldn’t disgrace him by looking further without his permission.

Realizing she’d become docile, she tried to twist in Micah’s hold, but he clenched her shoulders and held her steady. She remained facing Nix. She got the feeling Micah wanted Nix to see all of her nudity.

Micah spoke low against her ear. “I’m going to bathe you. Is Phoenix going to watch or help? Your choice.”

Holding Nix’s stare, she remained mute, her belly trembling at the very idea of Nix helping.

“I’ll watch,” Nix answered for her, but his fingers turned into fists at his sides.

“Your loss.” Micah lathered her hair and scrubbed her scalp, relaxing her with his touch. “When I thought Zennyo Ryuo murdered you, I was devastated.” He reached over his head and pulled a long length of spine out of the wall to wash away the shampoo. Surreal. “Losing the woman I love is not something I wish to experience again.”

Love?
Pfft
. His idea of the emotion would be better defined as manipulation. But…the level of commitment he’d put into her life appealed to her in some bizarre way.

Micah replaced the skull head and kissed her shoulder as his wet, soapy hands circled over her belly. For the first time since beginning the shower, Nix’s scrutiny lowered, studying Micah’s movements. Madison’s face flamed hot.

His hands moved upward in wispy circular motions and soaped up her breasts and shoulders until bubbles tickled her nose. Madison attempted to regulate her breathing, but his caresses weren’t awful like they once were. He rinsed the suds away, and focused on washing her nipples. Her humiliation grew as Nix eyed the way Micah’s thumbs circled over and over around the peaked, achy nubs.

“They’re clean enough.” The rasp in her voice horrified her.

Micah nipped her earlobe. “Phoenix, do you like what you see?”

Nix peered over her shoulder at Micah. Madison had to give him credit. He hadn’t become aroused from watching her husband’s fondling. She had, but he hadn’t. What’d that say about her?

Nix blinked and his attention shifted to her. “You know she’s beautiful.”

Madison shivered.

“She’s perfect.” Micah dragged his tongue along the side of her neck, lapping up the water.

She clenched her teeth together when Micah attempted to press a hand between her legs. “Don’t.”

“I need to remove the blood of his victims.”

“No extra privileges, Micah.” Thankfully Nix scanned the area to the left. “Not before we exchange covenants. I’ll do it.”

“I’ll enjoy watching.” He stepped around to face her, moving to her left so Nix’s line of sight wouldn’t be broken. “Finish, Madison.”

She glared at him and carefully sluiced her hand to her mound.

“How does it feel to touch yourself, kitten?”

Madison focused on his mouth and intentionally rocked her hips into her touch. “Decadent, Micah.” How she kept the blush off her cheeks, she’d never know.

Micah moved so fast, he voided the distance between them and his hand connected with hers. Their gazes crashed.

“Press a finger inside yourself and let me taste.”

Madison refused to perform for him. Her anger flared hot and she let the Lynx inside her loose. Micah grinned as the prisms of magic burst to life when her succubus took over. She shook her head hard, wet strands of hair clinging to her back and pulling at her scalp. “Remove your hand, Micah.”

He grinned, stepped back, holding both hands upward as if in surrender. “I wanted to see how easily you could shift to your Lynx.”

“Uh huh.” She didn’t buy that excuse.

Micah pushed her back against the wall and she cringed when it shifted as if cradling her in welcome. He stamped her arm against the wall, the puckered wound of his sigil stark red against her smooth flesh. She winced when he placed his palm over the burned-on design. His eyes grew fiery orange, blue skin shifted beneath his human flesh and overtook his mortal persona, as his fiber-optic wings burst into existence.

“You’re gorgeous like that. Why hide it?”

He smiled. “Ready, kitten?”

Her back arched off the wall as his seraph shot liquid-fast from his hand into the wound on her wrist. Breath stalled in her lungs, and her heart stopped beating.

Should anything be this intensely pleasurable? Everything inside her awakened—a shift she could only describe as akin to an out-of-body experience.

Her heartbeat a hard tattoo against her chest, she panted, growing lightheaded from lack of oxygen. The power stream-lining into her vibrated every pore and every erogenous zone, affecting her with dual, competing emotions. Icy. Hot. Pleasure. Pain. A raw mixture of them all. The combination was better than a high-speed vibrator against her clitoris.

She stared at her husband, but didn’t really see him for the bliss misting her vision. Humming on a hyper-drive of sensation overload, small snaps broke and burst off her body, an impression she had no understanding for except to compare it to caked mud falling off dry skin.

Pandora screamed a protest against the commingling of her cells, warning Madison she would bring about the world’s end if she continued down this road to Hell. They were words meant to shake her from merging with the Lynx. Pandora had never cared about the world before.

Visible cracks split along the oasis of her mental psyche, black, gaping cracks that terrified Pandora and she shrieked in a language that reminded her of Zen’s.

Madison leaned against the shower tile. A spray of hot water hit her shoulder and slid down her body. She shook from the energy as Micah watched her with an intensity that petrified her on so many levels she couldn’t address them all.

The dualities of her soul came face to face and slammed together, mixing in a frenzy as they integrated. Painless. Quiet peace claimed her.

Unified, they moved for Pandora, who hissed like a snake caught by its tail. They climbed into the box with her and Madison barked words she knew not the meaning for. Pandora whimpered, but went limp beneath the ancient command. Usha, her Lynx, straddled Pandora’s chest, leaned over her face and ingested the antediluvian force as they breathed. For the first time, Madison got a look at the creature. Dark hair, dark eyes, and honey-kissed skin…Pandora looked not a day over fifteen.

As they killed an ancient being, she’d meet her doom. Would the world cry in agony when she failed? Or would her transformation go unnoticed until the world grappled for survival as it quaked in worship on its knees before them?

Her skin tingled as they consumed the last of Pandora’s life force. The box slid free of her body and with a half-awareness she realized Nix captured Pandora’s Box before it hit the floor.

The haze in her vision circled around Nix’s face, honed on his features to crystal perfection. Forehead furrowed in a frown, he chewed on his bottom lip as he watched her demise.

Muscles between her thighs began to spasm. Her fingers twitched and her belly grew taut. Weak and trembling, she shoved Micah’s hand off her wrist. The sigil glowed a vibrant, fiery orange as if lit from the inside with demonic fire.

“No more of those…not until I grant you the privilege.” Her head lolled from side to side in the ghoulish embrace of the shower wall. She rolled to face it, her body victimized by mini-jerks from the imminent climax she’d denied herself.