Wicked Demons 2 (5 page)

He leaned ever closer as his hands ran past
her hips to her sides and then upward, cupping her breasts as if
they were a lifesaving cure. This action left his chest hovering
just above her back. She could feel him hard, pressing against her
ass.

"We will go slowly," he reassured them, but
mostly himself.

Andi was tired of negotiating. She wanted
him. There was no turning back now. She needed him. If he chose to
do it the slow way, well, that merely translated to more pleasure
for her.

Unable to form words, or even cohesive
thoughts now, Andi simply nodded. Bowing her back into Toryn's
chest, enabling her to rub her cheek against his neck, she
surrendered to their desire.

Toryn's breath hiccupped as his muscles
tightened. Spreading his thighs forced Andi's legs wide apart.
Releasing her full breasts, his palms ran the length of her waist,
resting on the mounds of her ass. His hands massaged her, lingering
only for a moment before parting her flesh. She felt his length
sliding, playing with the idea of penetrating her.

Angling to allow him entry, Toryn grabbed her
hips and steadied her. "Slow," he reminded her.

If it were up to her, she would have pounced
on him immediately and ridden him into the grave like he was the
last cowboy on earth. But they were supposed to take it slow. To
remain as tame as possible.

Enjoying the feel of him across her body, she
conceded, wanting anything. Any little brush of his fingers, swipe
of his tongue.

Though Toryn had endeavored to be the strong
one, he was clearly outmatched by Andi's wiles. There was no
cloaking the effect she had on him. And no point fighting the
inevitable outcome. For once, however, Toryn didn't mind
losing.

Running his chin across the nape of her neck,
he smelled a hint of her fruity shampoo mixed with eagerness and
heat.

Crossing his arms around her chest, pulling
her into his, they closed their eyes as he entered her. At his
word, Toryn's girth slid inside of her like a whisper on the wind.
Andi had all but forgotten her earlier urge to thrust and gyrate.
Rather, she focused on the way his body filled her to the brink, on
the way his arms held her close, on the sound of his breathing just
behind her left ear, rugged and shallow.

She leaned into him, allowing her knees and
Toryn's powerful thighs to cradle her weight. Each minute spawned a
new sensation, sending Andi's neurons reveling. Was it possible for
his touch to grow sweeter as well as ever more dynamic? As her hips
twisted, he knew right where to thrust to cause a burst of pleasure
from her loins.

Reaching her arms above her, she ran her
hands through his hair and down his shoulders. Her nails played
between languorous and frenzied across his flesh, depending on the
rhythm Toryn assumed. The heat of his body behind her drove Andi
wild. As did his tightening embrace. In the arms of any other, it
may have felt oppressive, abrasive. But not with Toryn. She felt
necessary, coveted. He very much expressed his sentiments in
physical love letters, sometimes in the form of a light touch, or
maybe a graze of his cheek against hers. Words were unnecessary
when he used such lyrical movements. The world could be struck mute
and it would not be able to quiet Toryn's desires.

Unable to hold back any longer, Toryn's grip
tightened, his breath raced. And as his hips worked harder,
plunging himself into her, their flesh smacking together, Andi
climbed with him. Her heart hurried, fluttering under the pressure
of their unreleased pleasure. Just as she began to worry that
Toryn's advice to rest had fallen on reckless ears, her most
sensitive parts began to quiver and shudder, dragging forth a moan
of relief from Toryn's throat.

They collapsed over the sofa, satiated.

"How are you feeling?" Toryn managed to
ask.

"Bizarre. Extraordinary."

He actually had the candor to laugh softly
against her back. "Of course. I should stop underestimating
you."

Pulling himself free, he leaned onto his
shins as Andi gathered enough composure to walk to the bathroom.
She hopped in the shower quickly, and when she emerged, found Toryn
trying to rest on the settee.

"Why do you possess such tiny furniture? Are
human men small enough to fit on this? I think not."

Laughing, she dried her hair between the
edges of the towel.

"It's supposed to be like that. They are used
in smaller spaces where regular couches won't fit. And they look
cuter."

Andi noted how he did not grunt his approval
this time.

"And the illusion of a fire. What is that?"
He pointed to the gas logs.

She shrugged. "Safety. Laziness. Cleanliness.
Take your pick."

A loud noise from downstairs jarred them back
to reality. Andi had nearly forgotten about the otherworldly storm
brewing around them. That spoke volumes of how Toryn affected
her.

"What the hell was that?" Andi asked, already
snatching a long-sleeve heather gray T-shirt and dark-wash jeans
out of her dresser.

Toryn was re-robing. How he was able to
create a worthy garment of any shape out of such random material
escaped Andi. And with such speed! She planned to ask him to show
her one day, you know, when they weren't in the middle of being
assassinated by modern-day, brainwashed, evil-as-the-dickens
witches.

Sliding on a pair of worn sneakers that Andi
used mostly for jogging, she grabbed Toryn's hand and ran through
the hallway until they reached the top of the stairwell.

"Okay, let's get this over with." Andi began
to charge down the stairs until Toryn snatched her back.

"What are you thinking?" He sounded
exasperated. "An army could be waiting for us down there."

Jerking her forearm out of his hand, she
matter-of-factly spat, "There better not be because my homeowner's
insurance doesn't cover 'shit preternatural armies obliterate'.
They were rather specific about that in the fine print!"

Looking intently into her eyes, he shook his
head. "I do not understand anything you are speaking of."

"Neither do I, anymore." Shrugging, she
turned and made herself ask, "What do
you
think we should
do?"

"Kill them."

A silent moment passed.

Andi fought the urge to remain quiet. "But
what if they're selling Girl Scout cookies?"

Once again, Toryn was left confused.

"Listen," she ordered, "We need to find out
who or what made that noise. In order to do that, we need to get
down these stairs as quickly and quietly as possible. Then we will
determine if there are any trespassers worthy of killing.
Acceptable?"

Toryn puffed out his chest and merely grunted
his approval.

"Good."

Before she could try to descend on her own
again, however, he pulled her to the side of his massive frame. "Do
not endanger yourself unless left no choice."

"Oh ye of little faith."

Andi actually wished she hadn't uttered those
words about a second later when she felt a forceful hand push her
dangerously forward, completely off balance. Her knees were already
bouncing painfully across the hardwood steps at an alarming rate as
she twisted just in time to see two men grab Toryn, who was still
at the top of the stairs. The look in his eyes clearly warned her
that she was about to crash at the bottom of the stairwell. And
just that quickly, the men overtook him, pulling him backwards as
he flexed and shouted. Andi felt an explosive pain on the back of
her head.

And then the world fell away into
nothingness.

A number of sensations swarmed Andi's body
before anything could register into a cohesive string of thoughts.
An ache that stretched from her shoulder to the back of her right
ear caused her to touch it and wince. Her arms and knees stung, as
if the air itself had turned to an acidic fog, eating away at every
bruise and scrape the unforgiving wood on her stairs had created. A
sickly ache pressed at her gut. The smell surrounding her was
artificially floral, slightly stale. Gardenias. The kind from a
can. It was doing no favors for her nausea. And the unfamiliar
voices...made Andi open her groggy eyes.

"Well hello! Good to see you up and about."
The friendly voice accosted her senses.

"That is a stretch, by far," she mumbled.

Taking a moment to focus her vision, it was
clear that she was in a small church. The modest number of pews and
crucified Jesus sort of gave it away.

"To be honest, we were all a bit baffled at
your ability to cross the threshold without, you know, becoming all
demony."

Pulling her thoughts together faster than
they would come, she forced a confident facade. "Of course. Why
would I become all 'demony'?" Laughing disingenuously, Andi sat
upright and made eye contact with the underweight stranger, who
wore too much hair gel and a mint green sweater vest. "Have you,
perhaps, bumped
your
head lately? I'm definitely not
judging, but it can leave one confused. Out of sorts.
Delusional."

It was his turn to laugh, though it was
clearly an artificial gesture. "Ms. O'Day, your family has a long
history with the church.
Long
. With my branch of the church,
in particular. We have no reason to disrespect one another's
intelligence with lies or fantasy. The truth will serve us both in
the end."

"And you know the truth?"

Crossing to sit in the pew in front of her,
he rested an elbow on the high back, turning to face her. His nose
was too pointy, like a beak. "Every little demon of it." His voice
was no less friendly, though a new tone seemed to mock everything
about her.

"Is that so?" she queried.

The man nodded.

Andi's head still felt like a split melon and
the mystery pain wracked her torso, but she would be damned -well
and truly damned- before she would pass the upper hand to a
nit.

"Then don't waste my time," she brazenly
commanded. "What is your involvement here? And what is your
interest in my family?"

"Oh, nothing sinister, I assure you. We, the
church and my fellow believers, only wish to eradicate the more
powerful demon offenders, leaving the low-level spawn to turn on
each other until they rip and tear themselves to extinction." A
fluid hand gesture and informal chuckle caused a chill to run up
Andi's spine. The puny man's laughter held the threat of a silent
promise. He was almost giddy when he added, "Back to hell with all
of you. It may sound crude at first, but you see, we simply do not
have the resources to snuff out every beast of Satan. Through a
series of mishaps, we discovered the lesser demons parish rather
quickly in the absence of any form of hierarchy. Kill the king and
the kingdom will fall. That sort of thing."

"And what does my family have to do with
this...higher calling?"

"That is not an easy question to answer. You
haven't even inquired of my name, yet you want to know secrets that
are kept under lock and key."

Andi leaned back against the pew. "Does that
offend you?"

"It should, I guess." He chuckled once more.
"Then again, I'm not as rigid as my fellow believers. And my name's
Duncan, if you care to know."

Remembering something Michael had mentioned
in the woods months ago, she thought it couldn't hurt to find out
if it held any truth or not. "I've heard a rumor that a lesser
demon can return a powerful one for the price of becoming human. Do
you know anything about that?"

"Oh!" Duncan's cheeks flushed and his
demeanor faltered. "That is... Well, it is possible, though not
every demon is eligible. They must be worthy."

"That is quite a bounty. Who fulfills
it?"

Smiling slyly, Duncan shook his head. "You
are a smart one. Then again, you are an O'Day. Maybe your answer
lies within."

"I have one more question." Andi leaned in
closely, and Duncan followed suit until they were about a foot
apart. "Where is the man you took from my house?"

She hadn't seen or heard Toryn the entire
time she and Duncan were having their little chat, and it was
beginning to unnerve her.

"Man? Why, there was no man present."

"Don't play unnecessary games."

"Oh! You are referring to Toryn. That is his
name, if I am correct. He is in our custody, of course."

"
He
is not property.
He
is a
living being. And I want him returned immediately."

"Oh." Duncan fidgeted, uncertain of what he
should say.

"He's a lowly demon, not worth your
time."

Something flashed in Duncan's eyes. "Ms.
O'Day, whether you have been misled or are trying to mislead, you
downplay his importance. We cannot possibly allow his release. It
would be foolish."

"Understandable."

For as much as she wanted to grab this man,
Duncan, and shake him until his sweater vest shimmied up and choked
the life out of him, Andi knew better. Nothing would be learned if
she acted rash. Nothing gained except more locked doors.

She rubbed her fingers together and crinkled
her brow. "Would it be alright if I said goodbye? I mean, if he's
here, why not? It's not as if we could turn against your people.
There are only two of us against...how many would you say?"

She continued to feign acceptance of Toryn's
fate, though she was secretly wondering what made him so
valuable.

"You are being quite gracious, but I cannot
allow it. I simply cannot. And we forget why you are here."

"Me? I thought you suspected me to be a demon
because of my demon heritage. Clearly, I'm a mundane human."

Seizing her arm and lifting the sleeve, he
exposed the amber trail lightly shimmering beneath her skin. His
calm demeanor snapped like a rabid dog as he spat, "Clearly not!
Let's not digress. Lies are beneath us. We are not so ignorant as
to forgive your brother for the 'gifts' he has bestowed upon you,
however, we strive to work
with
the Lord's helping hands,
fallen as they may be. Think what could be achieved if we work
together for the greater good."