How to Kill an Incubus: A Rae Erickson Story (14 page)

“So who’s Paisley?” I said coolly, a twisted part of me enjoying the sight of an obviously aroused Daniel Lawless in my bedroom. “Girlfriend of yours?”

Daniel scoffed. “Hardly. I’d never date a witch.”

I groaned. “You really are a hunter.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“It is,” I muttered, walking past him on my way to the bathroom. I closed the door behind me and quickly used the facilities. Well, as quickly as my throbbing body would allow me.

Jumping the demon couldn’t have been the sole reason for my body aching the way it did. I tugged my gown open and examined my body, squinting into the mirror.

Dry cum was evident between my thighs—evidence that my wet dream had succeeded in satisfying me. This rankled me. Of course, it probably had something to do with the fact that I hadn’t seen the guy in three weeks, since the night I’d kicked him out of my bedroom. My head was a conflicting mess. Half of me missed the sex like a missing limb, and the other half hoped that I’d never see him again. Both halves fought for total dominance in my head.

Clearly, the sex-crazed half had won last night.

“Dirty whore,” I spat at my reflection, before doing a double take.

There, on the right side of my neck, was the unmistakable purple mark of a hickey—exactly where Dream Andrei had kissed my neck.

“Thanks for breakfast,” I said politely, watching Daniel stack the dirty dishes in the sink. I was sitting at the center island, half a cup of lukewarm coffee the only remainder of the feast Daniel had made me that morning.

“Anything for a hungover damsel in distress,” he retorted, chuckling.

“Very funny.” There was no sting in my voice because I didn’t have the energy for it. I was still chilled by my discovery in the bathroom and what it could possibly mean. And being with Daniel like this only made me feel dirty and guilty.

For the first time ever, I noticed how empty my life was. All the beautiful, intricate details meant nothing if I was the only one that got to appreciate them. Seeing Daniel doing something as mundane and coupley as doing the dishes brought a lump to my throat.

“You okay?”

I hadn’t noticed that he was standing opposite me, a concerned look on his face.

I nodded, forcing myself to smile.

“Last night,” he began, “was a little overwhelming for you.” He paused, cocking his head. “Have you ever considered that being the female answer to
Cheaters
isn’t your calling?”

I gaped at him, nearly toppling the stool I was sitting on. “I… I thought you thought I was a writer.” It hadn’t been my most creative lie, but it was
the most believable.

“Babe,” Daniel said quietly, “I’ve been following you since Raymond died. I know everything about you.”

I swallowed the ball in my throat, tears springing to my eyes. “You knew my dad?”

He smiled, and that made him infinitely more handsome. “He taught me almost everything I know, sweetheart. Good hunter, great guy.”

I rubbed at my eyes. This was surreal. “Following… me?”

“I promised him,” he said matter-of-factly, coming around the island. “Please don’t cry, Rainelle.”

Of course, whenever I thought of what had befallen my father, I did the opposite. Big, fat tears slid down my cheeks and into my open mouth. Daniel sighed heavily and wrapped his arms around me, pressing my face into his chest. His scent, a sandalwood aftershave, calmed me down immediately and I found that my loud, choking sobs had quickly morphed to soft whimpers.

“There you go, pet,” he murmured, gently stroking my hair and letting me cry it all out.

I sure as hell didn’t want to raise my head and have him see me looking like a red-faced Cabbage Patch Kid. Pulling back and turning away from him, I used the sleeve of my gown to wipe my tears away.

“You up to talking?” Daniel asked, his deep voice filling the room.

I nodded, returning his gaze then. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it. Seriously, don’t. My street cred will go down the toilet when it gets out that I don’t flee from crying women.”

I smiled, for real this time. “Wouldn’t want that.”

He flashed me a sexy smile in return. “Exactly.”

“So,” I forced myself to be serious. “Paisley and the wards?”

“You do know what a ward is, right?”

I thought about it. I had heard that term before. A long time ago… “Either a room, an area, or a charge? The Jane Eyre type of ‘charge’.”

Daniel cursed under his breath. “Bloody hell. I mean, I knew from Ray that you weren’t interested in hunting, but come the fuck on!”

“Hey, don’t raise your voice at me.”

He took a deep breath. “Of course, of course. Sorry, babe. A ward is a spell that’s put up to protect a place or a person. Now, basically, your house was a sitting duck. Any demon could’ve strolled in here and killed you.” He paused, letting that sink in. It did. “I got Paisley to put a ward around your house. That means no demon can set foot on your land. It’s like an invisible force field shutting them out.”

“Thank you,” was all I could say. If I’d known about wards, I would’ve put them up in all my homes.

“Don’t mention it. It’s what I had to do.”

I sucked in air. “You said you… follow me?”

“To protect you. Although, it doesn’t help that you jet off around the world all the time and I lose track of you.”

Fat lot of good you’ve done me
, I thought witheringly. If he had been protecting me, how come I was always surrounded by incubi?

Instead, I muttered, “It’s my job,” and folded my arms across my chest.

“Scorned women aren’t that important, Rainelle. Raymond wanted you to…”

“Shut up, Daniel,” I interjected, hopping off the stool. “I don’t need to hear this. I can’t believe my father made you my babysitter!”

His hazel eyes flickered with anger. “Your father knew that you were too stupid to want to know how to protect yourself.”

My hand had a mind of its own when it lashed out and thwacked Daniel across the cheek. I stared at it for a moment, stunned. Then Daniel pounced on me, shoving me up against the refrigerator. A second passed before his mouth was on mine—warm, soft, and delicious. I groaned, looping my arms around his neck as he deepened the kiss, his tongue slithering into my mouth and dancing with mine.

“You taste so good,” he rumbled into my mouth before sucking on my bottom lip. His hands ran up my sides, leaving a scorching heat in their wake. I was positive I’d have third-degree burns there afterward. “So, so bloody good.”

“Mmm,” I murmured, because despite everything, the swell of his erection against my lower belly was so welcome.

But he dragged his lips from mine, scowling.

“Not again,” he fumed, pulling out of my embrace. “Dammit, Rainelle. Why are you doing this?”

“You jumped me,” I protested.

“You provoked me!”

“Awesome excuse.” I licked my bottom lip, shivering under his stare. “You need to go.”

“God, yes,” he said, his eyes so full of need that it was hard to believe it was all for me.

“Like right now, Daniel.”

“Yeah. We need to talk about this though.”

“The kissing?”
Yes, let’s talk about how inexplicably guilty I feel whenever we kiss. Note the sarcasm.

He rolled his eyes. “No, babe—the things you need to know, the questions you have to ask.”

“Oh, right.” I eyed him. “Actually, I have a question right now.”

“Ask away,” Daniel invited, now standing at a safe distance from me.

“Can… can incubi have sex with people in their dreams?”
Wow, you don’t sound crazy!

He regarded me for a long time before answering with, “Yeah, but the kicker is that even though it just feels like a dream, in reality, the sex happened.”

I thought of the love bite on my neck and inwardly cursed.

Chapter 9

In the next few days after my unforgettable weekend in London, Google became my best friend. If someone went through the browser history on both my laptop and BlackBerry, I’d be forever labeled a kinky weirdo for search terms like “sexual encounters with incubi” and “are orgasms with demons supposed to be so awesome?”

From contemplating my existence on this earth (Was I really just meant to be demon catnip?) and ignoring Daniel’s sudden frequent phone calls (I didn’t want to know how he’d obtained my number when we’d barely said five words in person to each other in the past. The man was my own personal sexy stalker), to following JP Fontaine around (something that had become as exciting as watching Oprah clip her toenails)—I didn’t have any time to really delve into deeper issues.

There was something that niggled at my conscience, something that kept me awake in a cold sweat late at night—every night, as a matter of fact. It constantly pushed itself to the fore of my thoughts as soon as my head hit the pillow, ominous and persistent. If the witch’s magic was supposed to keep demons out, how did Andrei get in?

Maybe there was an exception for the lord of them all. Maybe there was nothing that could keep him away from me. Maybe his power was too great for a simple witch called Paisley, of all names.

Whatever helps you sleep at night
, my inner voice snorted.

Except that I wasn’t sleeping at night. I was afraid of being defiled in my dreams and liking it. It made no difference that Daniel had confessed to only getting the opportunity to make my house in Parishville, and certainly not my Parisian penthouse, demon-proof. If Andrei wanted in, he didn’t have to wait for me to fall asleep. Because of this, sleep was hard to come by.

My late-night suspicion was the one thing I couldn’t ask Daniel. And Google didn’t help either. Instead, I spent late nights in front of my laptop laughing uncontrollably at ridiculous forums like Demonic Encounters. They were filled with pathetic-sounding women claiming to have experienced “sexual encounters with otherworldly beings and suffering the physical ramifications because of them”. One woman went so far as to say that she didn’t even mind the intrusion, that sex with the demon was infinitely better than with her “disappointing, Viagra-popping” husband.

These women were of no help to me and many of the “seers” that offered to get rid of said incubi sounded like money-grabbing quacks as well. There was little luck of finding a way to separate truth from fiction.

So I kept my questions to myself… until
myrna_lake67
.

It was one late Friday evening, after hitting Nicolette for two hours in the hopes of catching JP doing something, I returned to my penthouse and kicked my heels off before settling on the couch with my laptop. Out of habit, I logged in to Demonic Encounters as a guest user and scanned the recent posts. The usual horny crazies posted outlandishly graphic—and made up, I was sure—descriptions of sexual encounters with demons. Leaning back on the couch, I rolled my eyes at
d3moan3r’
s story of what had allegedly gone down in her apartment last night. She claimed she was practically paralyzed from the waist down and had been comatose for the entire morning.

Then there was a post from someone called
scared_&_alone
. She wanted to know why the witch’s ward wasn’t working on a particular demon that had been visiting her since she’d turned eighteen. The demon had been coming weekly—no pun intended—for ten years now, alternating once in a while with a second creature. And she was beginning to think that the “mental and physical anguish” would never stop. The second demon had since ceased his visits, which was how
scared_&_alone
knew the witch she’d paid hadn’t been a hack, but the first one had continued to make his regular stopovers—albeit only in her dreams.

myrna_lake67
was the only commenter.

myrna_lake67
:
Do you have feelings for this demon?

scared_&_alone
:
What? OF COURSE NOT. My body and mind can’t take this! I’m being attacked in my own home! How could you ask such a thing?

myrna_lake67
:
Please don’t be offended. Oftentimes, an incubus’ allure clouds our normal judgment and we end up with misguided feelings. We know having any kind of affection for this creature is wrong, but perhaps his magic sucks you into feeling things for him. It’s quite common. The large part of a witch’s magic is in keeping unwanted creatures out. But if you subconsciously want this demon, then that magic cannot fully work. Don’t be alarmed. It is not love that you are feeling, merely the end result of years of abuse at the hands of an evil being.

scared_&_alone
:
can I PM you??? Please! I need to talk to someone that understands.

myrna_lake67
:
Even better – e-mail me here: [email protected]

Well, fuck me sideways and call me Bob!

I read and reread what
myrna_lake67
had sent the other woman and bit my lower lip until I drew blood.
Feelings. Fucking feelings?! No!
I slammed my laptop closed and placed it on the coffee table before getting to my feet.

scared_&_alone
could’ve been me—except I wouldn’t just lie down and take what she’d taken for ten goddamn years! And I wasn’t scared, nor was I alone, because apparently, I had a freaking hot babysitter doing quite a shitty job of watching my back. Still, the fact that Andrei had made me come in my sleep was testament to the fact that, much like
scared_&_alone
’s witch, Paisley’s magic hadn’t worked.

Why are you shutting me out?

That was what Andrei had asked me in my pseudo-dream, wasn’t it? I hadn’t known what the hell he meant. But now, after finding out about the ward, it clicked—except that he hadn’t really been shut out because I most probably had feelings for him.
No, ‘it’.

I stood in my bedroom, peeling off my halter neck dress in front of the mirror. Naked, I pondered all this. Yes, I missed sex with him. I missed it so much that I thought about calling him. The fact that I didn’t have Andrei’s number was the only thing that had kept me from doing just that. And sure, I kind of gotten into the habit of faithfully taking birth control, even when I went without sex. But it wasn’t because I wanted to be prepared when Andrei finally came around to inevitably fuck me.

Right?

Shit!

“What are we looking at?” a lazy voice came from the doorway.

Jumping, I spun around.

Shit!

“You can’t come around anymore, Andrei,” I said quickly, snatching my nightgown from the same chair I’d tied him to (that felt like it had been years ago). I put the gown on and pulled my hair into a ponytail.

“I prefer you naked,” he growled, his words trickling down my body and entering my sex like warm liquid.

Dammit! What the hell am I wet for?  

“I don’t care. What do you want?” I folded my arms across my chest, giving him the once-over. As usual, he looked like a walking orgasm. His hair was pulled back from his face and hung in a low ponytail. A forest green T-shirt strained across the planes of his hard chest and a pair of dark jeans clung to his powerful thighs. And lastly, a pair of black motorcycle boots completed his I’d-Be-Sexy-in-Dog-Shit look. This was the man that supposedly ruled an army of demons in the Underworld.

“You,” he ground out, slowly striding to me. “But you already knew that.”

I stood my ground, refusing to be a replica of the pathetic
scared_&_alone
—and running. “Aren’t you going to ask about the ward?” I asked.

He paused before me, a wry smile on his face. “I should be hurt. You want to keep me out now?”

“Daniel, he’s my hunter friend, wanted to protect me from your kind. He’s such a great guy. Strange but great,” I said in one breath, suppressing a groan when I noticed that Andrei was sporting a hard-on that could’ve impaled concrete. To say it was distracting was an understatement.

He arched a brow. “Trying to make me jealous?”

“Trying?” I spluttered, a thought occurring to me. “What about that flunky you sent after us last week? The one who attacked Daniel and me in Parishville? Was he a result of my trying to make you jealous?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Don’t play dumb with me! He said your name. Before Daniel banished him, of course.”

“You were attacked,” Andrei said to himself, his gaze flitting to the wall. His piercing eyes finally swiveled to mine—and the look on his face then could have melted the skin off my bones. “Did he say anything else?”

I swallowed. Jumping to conclusions seemed to be my M.O. at the moment. “He just went, ‘Andrei’s’ and that was it. I think he was insinuating that I… that I belong to you.”

Andrei nodded, considering this.

“But I don’t. I’m my own person and I don’t appreciate the notion that…”

“And that’s all he said?” he asked, interrupting my attempt at being assertive.

“Well, yes. He looked like a kid, if that’s any help.”

Andrei gave out a short bark of laughter. “No, it’s not. Rae, I could temporarily transform myself into an eighty-year-old right this second, if the fancy struck me. So getting an APB out for a demon isn’t a picnic. He probably picked a skin at random.”

“That’s comforting.”

“Hey,” he said, his voice suddenly gentle. “I’ll look into it. No one touches you. No one.”

I averted my eyes. There was no way I was going to feel all warm and fuzzy inside because he just told me he’d look out for me. I wasn’t one of those women who stood idly by while a man fought her battles and opened her car door.

“You’re getting sappy,” I mumbled, gliding past him. “Is there ever a point to your visits besides wanting to fuck me?”

“Actually, there’s one thing I could use your opinion on.”

Before I could shoot him a curious look, Andrei had me pinned down on the bed, his front pressed against mine and his hands holding down my wrists above my head.

“What?” I breathed, alarm bells ringing in my head.

“Rough or gentle?”

Oh, hell!

How could I resist that? It was acutely impossible for me to think about anything beyond the thrill of his erection nudging  my opening. In that position, my mind was in fuck-me-now mode.

“Rough,” I gasped, because Andrei being gentle made me think about feelings, butterflies and… kittens licking chubby babies—all that nasty shit.

“I knew you’d say that.”

He flipped me onto my stomach and yanked my gown off. “Are you fucking the hunter?”

“What?” I murmured into my pillow, shivering under Andrei’s stare. “No.”

I felt his hands stroke my ass and I whimpered when he pulled me to my knees. I loved my ass and I loved him in my ass.

“Why not?”

Holy crap, was that his finger?!
Sure enough, his wet digit was closing in on the puckered hole between my butt cheeks. I automatically tensed.

“We’re not like that,” I replied hoarsely. “But I’ve thought about it.”

I knew what I was doing, goading Andrei into a fit of jealousy, but nothing could have prepared me for the exquisite sensation of his index finger thrusting into me. He didn’t even wait for me to become accustomed to the intrusion, and that undisguised malice was exciting.

“Fuck my finger,” he grunted.

My hands tangled in the bedsheets beneath me as I automatically did as he instructed. The tight ring of muscles down there clenched around Andrei’s finger, slowly sucking him in. Sweet, delicious pleasure washed over me by the bucket load when his other hand slid between my thighs, zoning in on my sopping sex.

Andrei leaned over me, his mouth inches away from my ear. “Did you tell the hunter how much you like my demon cock inside you?” he snarled before he flicked his tongue into the shell of my ear.

I wailed, wanting him to undress, wanting to feel his hot skin against mine. “No.”

“What would he think of you if you told him?” His other hand was working on me now, his long, cruel fingers recklessly tweaking my clit. “Rae Erickson, the demon hunter’s daughter who can’t get enough of my demon cock inside her tight little pussy.”

I shamelessly rocked against him, strange little noises leaving my lips. Everything he was doing threatened to bring me to a climax—even his freaking smell turned me on.

“Why the fuck aren’t you speaking?” Andrei parted the drenched folds of my opening and dipped a finger deep within me. Every thrust sent me spiraling out of control.

I cried out, wanting my release.

“What do you want, Rae? My cock? My mouth? You want me to fuck you hard enough to kill you?”