The Demon's Deception (Demons Unleashed Erotic Novellas) (12 page)

"The idea has merit." Gaap conceded. "Barbas, your thoughts."

Barbas looked surprised. "Mine?"

"You have actually seen the king recently. Any chance of this working?"

"No."

"Excellent. Let's do it anyway." Gaap smiled, his teeth white and shark-like in his face. "In the meantime, princess, you will be our...guest."

A prisoner. Again. Not like she wasn't used to it but she was getting tired of being locked up. "Two hours of sunlight a day," she demanded. "And a doctor for the babe."

"You think to barter your imprisonment?" Gaap seemed amused rather than annoyed.

"Those are my terms."

"Done."

Barbas held her bicep with a firm touch. The deep and abiding loneliness that she'd sensed in Barbas was gone. In it's place was the conviction of his loyalty to his king. Loyalty and devotion. Two emotions she'd never inspired in anyone. Not even her lover.

But he had wanted her. She knew this to be the truth.

"You will not defile the Fae this way," Finn screeched. In a lightening quick move, Finn rushed her, and attacked with murderous intent. He lifted his blade high then his arm arced down. Aine's only thought was to protect the baby. Even as she kicked out her leg, she covered her belly and rolled to the ground. Her kick missed its mark and Finn's fierce momentum carried him to the ground on top of her.

Barbas lunged for her and curved his arms around her waist as he attempted to block the attack. But he was too late. The blade sunk into her chest and pierced her heart.

She felt the love and fear that pulsed through Barbas as he attempted to protect her. His touch, his arms wrapped around her, bathed her in affection. The loving touch of another living being was what she'd been missing most of her life. And she knew peace.

"No," roared Barbas.

"The baby," Aine whispered as Barbas gathered her in his arms. "Save the baby."

And that was the last she knew.

SEVENTEEN

Barbas clutched Aine in his arms and ignored the Demon soldiers who attacked and subdued the Fae bodyguard. The Fir Bold stood stunned by the vicious attack.

Barbas pressed his shirt against the deep wound and sent healing energy through his touch. Blood soaked the shirt almost instantaneously as her life source poured from her body. Aine lay passive and unmoving as he cursed.

The baby. She wanted to save the baby. But Barbas wanted to save her.

Gaap knelt beside him. "How is she?"

"I am trying to save her."

"What about the babe?" Gaap said. "It would be the first babe born since we escaped."

"The babe is only a fledgling life. She is who I want."

"The babe could be the bridge between our races. You cannot deny that we need this connection. We need to end this war," Gaap said adamantly. He placed his hands upon Barbas's shoulders and poured his energy into Barbas's body, feeding the massive amount of healing power needed to repair Aine's heart.

"I can't believe you of all people can propose this," Barbas snarled, even as he drew Gaap's energy into his body and sent everything he had to Aine. The knife had pierced her heart. He knit the tissue back together carefully, slowly.

"War serves no one. We are here. If we can get the Fae to agree to a truce then we can begin to live again instead of constantly fighting to keep what we've gained," Gaap said resolutely. "We need this hybrid."

Barbas continued to send all of his energy to Aine. He had managed to clot her blood. But next he needed to repair the artery or the need for clotting would eventually stop the blood flow and keep her senseless. Her blood coated his hands and edged up his wrists, obscenely red against his skin.

"What if I can give you another hybrid?"

"Really. You want to try to create another baby? With another Fae?" Gaap twitched but his hands stayed steady on Barbas's shoulders.

"Gods, can you let this go right now?"

"I'm sorry but I am the leader of the Demons. I cannot let the subject go."

"Whether the babe lives or dies, we have a hybrid." Barbas tried to concentrate all of his energy on healing Aine. He drew from the setting sun and the rising moon, pulling the rays of both to him as he pushed the healing energy into her body.

"What?" Gaap asked.

No hesitation, no regret. His only thought was to save her. She'd stopped bleeding but her torso was covered with her blood. The torrent of blood from the wound had edged even further up his arms to his elbows. "I am a hybrid," he shouted, horrified by the red curtain against his skin. "Can we discuss this later?"

Silence.

Barbas listened to Aine's blood flow through her veins sluggishly. Her heart pumped in sonorous beats. Her chest barely rose as she labored to breathe. He bent over her, protecting her body from the crowd around them. There was no time to move her. He breathed in unison with her, and visualized her blood thickening and sending life saving oxygen to her brain and to her heart. And for an instant, he peeked at the small baby growing in her womb. The baby was pulling her energy. As the body was designed, the mother's body supported the baby first.

For a moment he was distracted by the life growing inside her. He placed his hand over the swell in her stomach. It had not been visible with the gown she wore, but now that she lay flat on the ground, he could see the slight bump that housed their child. A wonder grew in him. A tidal wave of love so perfect it spread throughout his body and poured through his hands.

Gods damn it. What could he do to give Aine more energy? He leaned over her and brushed his lips against hers. "Live, dammit."

As he leaned back, he realized no one had moved.

And it struck him, he'd confessed his deepest deception. Before today, the worst thing that could ever happen to him was the Demon's discovery of his half Fae parentage. But now, Barbas knew that was nothing. He would live the rest of his life in exile if it meant that Aine would survive.

"Help me heal her," he pleaded without looking at Gaap. "And then we will leave."

Gaap's indrawn breath was audible in the suddenly quiet air.

Barbas curled over the inert form of his love. "I will protect her to my dying breath. If you wish to punish me, so be it. But first, let me heal her."

"Do you think so little of me that you believe that I would banish you?" Gaap paced on the warm sand. Little bursts of dust puffed around his boots as he paced back and forth.

"I am of your enemy," Barbas said simply.

Gaap rebutted. "Pfft. You are my friend."

"But...."

"We are your friends." Gaap waved his arm to encompass the silent group of Demons that surrounded them. He rubbed his hands together in a gleeful motion. "I have no intention of banishing you. In fact, we can use you. You may have insight into the Fae's ability that you didn't even realize that you had."

"What about Aine?"

"The choice is hers. I won't make anyone stay against their will." Gaap knelt beside Barbas and placed a gentle hand on her forehead. "But I don't think that will be a problem."

Barbas stared at Aine as if the force of his gaze would make her better. "I don't know what I will do if she dies," he confessed.

"She is why you've been so miserable, I take it," Gaap said slowly.

"It seems impossible that I could miss her so much when I only knew her for a few days. but it's as if she's embedded in my skin, in my psyche. And I don't want to get her out." Barbas let out a breath as she began to breathe easier on her own.

"There may be problems with the king."

"Since his man was willing to kill her, does that not give us the right to keep her?" Barbas whispered.

"Again, you must accede to her will. I will not keep her here if she wishes to return to the Fae Realm," Gaap said softly. "And not everyone will welcome her with open arms."

Barbas felt the tension leave his body as Aine began to breathe softly on her own. Only then did exhaustion overwhelm his body. He'd spent his energy, his life force to heal her. "Then I must convince her to stay."

Depleted, he fell to the sand beside Aine and curled his body around hers. They lay silent in the blood soaked sand, his arms wrapped protectively around her, still intent on sheltering her.

Gaap rose to his feet and gestured to the Fae bodyguard. "Escort the Fir Bolg to the Fae clearing, leave him," he gestured to Finn, "restrained with a message for the Fae king."

Gaap spoke to the remaining Fae who had not attacked, only watched. "By attacking the princess he has given us permission to protect the Fae Princess and the Demon/Fae babe that grows in her belly. Any act against the princess is an act against the Demons. Make it known."

As soon as Gaap made the declaration, his reason for consciousness, to protect Aine, was eliminated. And Barbas tumbled into oblivion.

EIGHTEEN

Barbas awoke slowly. Awareness came in little pricks of sensation as he took stock of his body. He lifted one clean hand, no brown residue lingered in the cracks of his skin. Aine lay cradled in his arms. As he scanned her form, he observed the sick coat of her blood was gone from both their bodies. Although weak from the intensity of healing her, he was whole and hale. More than, if his cock was anything to go by.

The fresh scent of heather and tea tree wafted from Aine's long, ebony hair. She lay supine in his arms, her back nestled against his front, as he quartered the room with his gaze. In the corner, a giant tub still bore the signs of their cleansing. A pile of damp towels lay jumbled on the floor and drops of water glistened on the ceramic lip of the tub. The Graces must have been tasked with making sure no trace of violence lingered on them.

With trembling fingers, he cupped the delicate curve of Aine's shoulder. Under his palm her skin was soft and scented with almond oil. Her breath caused the slight rise and fall of her chest. Her breasts were plumped and bared to his view by the drape of the sheet over her waist. Flowers twined in her hair. Another clue that the Graces had been here while they were unconscious.

A huge swell of gratitude nearly knocked him flat on his back. She was alive. Breathing. Barbas forced his hands to steady and slid gently along her tender skin, over her waist, and pushed the soft silk sheet over her hips. His palm settled over the slight bump in her stomach.

The rapid bump-bump of the babe's heartbeat reassured him. With his healing senses, he assessed his child. Healthy. The trauma to Aine's body seemed to have bypassed the fetus.

Barbas couldn't seem to stop petting her. He pressed a gentle kiss to her shoulder even as his fingers traced the curve of her hipbone and the gentle slope of her thighs. Resolutely, he ignored the puckered red slash at her breast and concentrated on the smoothness of her supple skin and the steady, beautiful sound of her breath.

Barbas continued to assess her health as she stretched sinuously under his strokes. She was alive!

Aine shifted on the slippery satin sheets, and as her senses returned, she became aware of the hot, heavy weight over her waist. The press of a hard chest against her back. The snuggled curve of strong thighs behind her own, and the disturbing awareness that she was nearly naked and had no idea how this came to be. And finally the hard pulse of an erect cock against her buttocks.

As she slowly opened her eyes, other clues alerted her to her whereabouts. The crash of waves against the sand. The sweet and tart scent of heather and lemons in the early morning breeze. A peat fire burned in a heavy limestone fireplace. Velvet curtains hung on the posts of a massive oak bed. She held still. Unsure how long she'd been asleep or how she had come to be in this bedroom.

Panic fluttered in her stomach as she acknowledged she really had no idea where she was.

"You are awake?" The deep rumble of Barbas's voice vibrated against her back. Goddess, she must be dreaming. Tears pricked her eyes and she pressed her lids closed against the wish that he was here.

"I'm holding on to you. I know you are awake."

Not a dream. She was in a bed with him.

How odd. Through a thick fuzzy fog she tried to remember how she arrived in this bed but her mind could dredge no memory of it.

"Where," she cleared her parched throat, and attempted to swallow the tight ball. "Where am I?"

"Welcome to my home," he said softly.

Disbelief flooded through her as her memories returned in a rush. Gaap, the confrontation, the fight, Finn's betrayal, and his final act. "So this is my prison?"

Barbas shifted and tried to roll her towards him. But she held stiff against his efforts. When she refused to turn around and face him, he pressed a gentle kiss to the curve of her neck.

"I would hope that my home is more hospitable than your former dungeon." He placed a large rough palm against the bulge in her tummy that protected their baby.

"You promise me that you will care," she stumbled over her words. "For the baby. Love her," she said fiercely.

"You are not dying." He stroked his palm over her arm, his rough callused fingers tingled against her bare skin. "Not anymore."

She ignored him. "And you must promise to speak well of me to the child." She bared her soul. "I love her."

"Why are you so sure it's a her?"

"No Fae males have been born in a very long time. Only female progeny for the last thousand years."

"Interesting."

Why were they discussing these mundane procreation facts? Aine squashed the hope that blossomed in her heart. With his arm around her waist, even with her increased ability, she knew it was possible that he could deceive her. After all, he'd hidden his Demon side successfully while in both the Human and Fae Realms. Her truthsayer abilities would be near useless with him.

Barbas asked. "Why did you come to me?"

Aine's heart thudded. Dare she answer truthfully? She had no choice. "I knew how much your mother's abandonment hurt you," she said haltingly. "I could not keep my condition from you. Nor could I keep the baby from you. It was not right. Fair."

She clenched her fingers against the need to stroke his skin. Her body trembled with fatigue. And her chest ached. However she didn't know if the ache was caused by her wound or by her cracked and broken heart.