Demon's Caress

Chapter Three

The three of them spent the day rutting in the men’s apartment. In the kitchen, on the floor in the living room, in the bedroom and the shower just before they’d had to meet Samael. Raum and Kobal insisted on following her to her apartment while she changed. There was no way she was doing the walk of shame in front of her boss wearing the same clothes she’d worn the night before.

He’d be smug about it, the bastard.

But she hadn’t bonded with them, no matter what anyone else wanted her to do. Whether they believed her or not, she was saving them from a lot of pain later. It might suck now, but in the long run, it was for the best. Breaking a bond as deep as what they wanted was a crippling, debilitating experience. Even all these years later, she remembered it with searing clarity. There had been days when she couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Her mind and soul echoed with emptiness as the bond snapped and left her alone for the first time in years. She’d screamed and screamed just to hear something besides the nothing that ate her alive.

A shudder went through her, revulsion curdling in her belly. She’d held herself from the edge of madness, pulled herself together, and gotten back to work. No more sexual bonds with partners. Not ever.

They stepped into the elevator to ride it to the hellmouth. The small space felt even more crowded with two large male demons in it with her. She drew in a slow breath to steady herself and took in the scent of the men.

One case. That was all she’d promised Samael, and that was all she’d be able to stand. Her mind knew what was best, but after the hours and hours of being drowned in sensuality, their hands moving over her and each other, their quiet talking and laughter in the dark, the sweet intimacy was more than her loneliness could handle. The temptation would be too much to resist if she stuck around much longer.

It made her ache to think of it, but she firmed her jaw and rode out any pain. This was the right thing for all of them. So what if she didn’t like the thought? Suck it up, princess. Better than ending up in a fetal position and puking her guts up because the agony of bond-breaking was like having her beating heart ripped from her chest.

Raum growled and punched the button to halt the elevator on its downward slide to Samael’s floor. They shuddered to a stop, and Maron grabbed for the metal handrail as the car jolted.

“What did you do that for?” She arched her eyebrows, looking from one man to the other. They were due in Samael’s office in a few minutes. The high demon didn’t like being kept waiting.

“Okay, I have to ask—we have to ask.” Kobal gestured between Raum and him when he rounded on her. “Why don’t you work with men? Both times we’ve all been together have been fucking amazing. Mind-blowing. Better than anything Raum or I had hoped for when we decided to start looking for a female to form a Triad with. And it’s not just the sex…we like you. We like having you around. Hell, Raum even talks when you’re around, and that’s more than a little unusual.” He shook his head, frustration stamped on his handsome features. “Even if it’s not to a bonding point for you, it still doesn’t make sense. You want to do your job well, anyone who’s met you can tell that, and the best way to do your job is to have a sexually amplified Triad. So, why?”

“I had a sexual bond with my first partner. It didn’t go well.” Understatement of the millennium. She wrapped her arms around herself defensively. The last thing she wanted was to talk about this in front of men she’d spent the night shagging. It was just sex. It had to be. Opening up was a mistake, letting anyone in was a mistake. Especially men she liked as much as she liked these men.

Something close to desperation shone in his blue eyes. “And you’re not willing to give it another chance?”

“No,” she said flatly.

“What happened?” He spread his hands and let them fall to his sides, the expression on his face making her chest tighten.

She closed her eyes and shook her head, her heart clenching. Telling them about her weakness and shame would help nothing. “That’s no one’s business but mine.”

“It would make it easier for us to understand why you don’t want us.” Those words from Raum stung. The rejection in his voice was like acid pouring over her skin.

Swallowing, she forced herself to meet his eyes. His expression made her flinch. His normal stoicism was gone, and his gaze reflected a deep pain that just made her want to sob. She hadn’t really cried in years, but it was all she could do to keep tears from welling in her eyes. It hurt her to hurt them, and she hated doing it. She wished she didn’t have to, wished her history had made her into a different person. Then again, when hadn’t she wished she could undo the damage Shax had done?

Maybe it would help them to understand why she could never give in. Maybe it would make them stop offering that sweet bond so openly. It was a punch to the gut to consider that the truth about her failures might turn them away from her entirely. That was what she wanted, wasn’t it? She shut down any protest from her soul. “He was my first partner—Shax.”

“What did he do to you?” Raum’s hand closed over the nape of her neck, the gesture one of support.

“Nothing. He didn’t do anything to me.” No, it was what he hadn’t done that made all the difference in the world. “I’d just come topside and Samael wanted to start me out with one partner at first, build me up to a Triad.”

She’d wanted to do the hunting rather than serving as a prison guard for the evil souls in hell. Active participation in shipping their sorry asses downstairs rather than just making sure they stayed locked there. She’d been determined to learn everything she could, but it had been harder than she’d ever imagined. Learning to blend in among humans was difficult, trying to stay in corporeal form was challenging, ripping a corrupted soul from its body was exhausting and had made her violently sick to her stomach the first few times. Shax had thought that meant she didn’t have what it took to be a hunter. He’d never said it, but they were bonded. She could sense his doubt in her, had felt that doubt coating her skin every time they’d gone out on assignment.

Her hand tightened on the elevator rail, a connection to the present when her mind was locked in the past. “Samael put me with one of his most experienced hunters, so he could show me the ropes. I think even Samael was surprised how deeply I bonded with Shax.”

Too deeply, it turned out, and Shax certainly hadn’t opened himself to the link as much as she had. But she’d never bonded before—there was no need for it below. They had all the power there. Not so much up here. She didn’t know how to keep any of herself back from the bond, hadn’t even known that she should.

“It was a rough transition to the hunter lifestyle, and he…didn’t think I had the chops to be a hunter.” Her own partner hadn’t thought she was good enough. How pathetic was that?

“Fool,” Raum growled. She could feel his anger as a palpable force in the elevator.

Kobal paced in the small space, and he made a sound of disgust in the back of his throat. “Did you put a blade in the asshole?”

She snorted, her eyes stinging. “No, I didn’t do anything to him.”

Though when she’d finally dug herself out of the pit of loss and despair, she’d wanted to. Her ex-partner had been damn lucky that Samael had shipped his ass to a silo in the swampy armpit of Africa—somewhere Shax was sure to despise. The high demon had immediately given her a new female partner and put her back to work, driving her relentlessly until she was too busy to think of Shax. It was probably the kindest thing her boss could have done for her—he hadn’t babied her at all. Combined with her burning need to prove Shax had been wrong about her, she’d risen to become one of the most productive hunters in their silo.

She pinned her gaze to the floor. She didn’t want to see the expressions on Kobal and Raum’s faces when she finished the ugly story. “We were out on a hunt one night, and it was a really bad one. I’d never come across a soul this evil, not even in hell.” She swallowed, trying not to recall how her gorge rose the moment that rotting stench had hit her nose. “It was bad.”

She felt Raum twitch beside her, and Kobal paused in his relentless pacing. Clearing her throat, she pushed on. Just get the story over and be done with it. “We caught him in the vortex, and started breaking his soul out of his body, but we were struggling to raise enough power to get it done. I poured everything I had into it, knowing the bond with Shax would hold me back from getting sucked in along with that ugly soul.”

“We’ve done that before. It can be effective,” Kobal interjected, but still she couldn’t look at him.

Because that kind of risk meant relying wholly on the bond, which she had. A mistake. “Shax didn’t think I had the power to finish it…and he thought if he kept the bond with me open, he’d be pulled in with me.”

The strangled sound Raum made had her flinching. Yeah. It was really that awful. She sometimes managed to convince herself that she’d made it worse in her mind, but no. The complete, utter selfish betrayal was as bad as she remembered.

“So, he cut our bond. Right there, in the middle of our soul retrieval. He walked away and didn’t look back.” Her stomach heaved as she said it.

“How did you manage to stop from getting sucked in?” Kobal’s voice was strained, a painful sound to hear.

She shook her head, never once looking up. “I don’t know. The best Samael can guess is that when the bond broke, I went into shock and slammed down all barriers on power, which cut the vortex too.”

“I didn’t know that was possible.” His feet began to thud against the floor again as he resumed walking around the car. “Once you commit to it that far…”

“I don’t know. It was days before I woke up in my apartment, and I wasn’t even in physical form. Samael had found me and brought me back. The soul escaped, and other hunters had to bring him in, but I was lucky I’d gone spirit form because he could have done anything he’d wanted to me. I was totally out of it. Comatose. I was that far gone without my bond to Shax.”

Hot shame poured through her, the humiliation still fresh after all these years. She’d given so much to that bond, trusted in it so much, that she’d lost herself. She’d been a fool, and had almost paid for it by being consumed by her own vortex and tangled up with that festering soul for eternity. There would have been no undoing it, no saving her. For everyone’s sake, she’d have been locked in hell along with all the other evil souls. The end.

Her mouth worked for a moment, moisture burning the back of her eyes. “So, yeah. No more male partners. No more sexual bonds. No more relationships. I’m sorry. I just can’t go there again. It’s not worth the risk to try to be the best.” Which was what she would tell Samael when she turned down this Triad he wanted her to join. She wasn’t strong enough to let go of herself again. She might not recover this time, especially if it was with two men instead of one.

She was so steeped in her misery, she didn’t even see Raum move, but the next thing she knew, he had her in his arms. Kobal came up behind her, the heat of both their bodies enveloping her. The blond demon ran his hand down her hair. “I’d like to toss his ass into a vortex for you. See how he likes it.”

“Coward.” The emotion behind the word wrenched up from deep inside Raum. He buried his face in her neck, his grip on her tightening painfully.

She stroked her hands up his back. “It was a long time ago. I healed.”

“Did you?” Kobal snapped, barely leashed fury in his voice. “You run from bonds, so that tells me you haven’t healed—that the son of a bitch scarred you so bad, you might never heal.”

He had a point. She refused to cringe from it. She was always going to be a little bit broken. Shax had taken something from her that she didn’t think was possible to get back. Trust. Hope. The ability to love. He’d taken everything, and she’d spent a hundred years trying to fill the emptiness he’d left behind. Maybe that was an impossible task, but what else could she do? Give up and go back to that pathetic creature she’d been? She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

“You’re right.” She sighed. “I’m scarred, and that’s never going to get better. But now you know why I can’t give you what you want.”

Raum’s lips moved against her skin when he spoke. “I refuse to believe that. Do you know how strong you are to have survived what he did? And to have come so far since then?” He pulled back to meet her gaze, his green eyes almost electric in their intensity. “I want you more now than I ever did before, Maron.”

It was the longest speech she’d ever heard from him, and it left her speechless. What could she say to that? Her heart skipped a beat and she felt herself wavering on the edge of something she was too terrified to identify, let alone give in to. She shoved at his chest, tearing herself from his arms, but Kobal caught her wrist and hauled her toward them.

She struggled against his hold. “I don’t—”

He slammed his mouth over hers, smothering any protest she might have made. She bit his tongue when he thrust it between her lips, fighting him, fighting herself and everything she wanted but couldn’t have. Damn them, and damn herself even more.

Raum closed in behind her, the heat of him swamping her. He pushed her hair out of the way and bit the nape of her neck, sliding his hands down her back. She could feel his erection prodding her ass, while Kobal’s seared into her lower belly. Moisture gushed in her sex, the despair of moments before swept up in the passion of the moment.

Everything about them made her burn.

Kobal jerked her shirt over her head, and Raum removed her boots. They stripped away her jeans and panties in seconds, and pulled her down until they knelt on the floor of the elevator.

The blond demon bent to her breast, sucking her nipple through her bra. The rasp of lace stimulated her responsive flesh, and her head fell back, lust pouring through her system. She moaned when Raum caught her mouth, and she pushed her tongue between his lips. It was intoxicating, being surrounded by them. She slid her fingers into Kobal’s hair, holding him close as he sucked and bit at her nipples. Reaching back with the other hand, she grabbed a fistful of Raum’s dark locks. He groaned, his hips surging against her backside.

It made the experience that much more excruciating that she was naked and they still had their clothes on. Their jeans felt rough against her sensitized skin, but that only sharpened her pleasure. Raum released her lips, stringing open-mouthed kisses down her throat until he could scrape his teeth over the tendon that joined neck to shoulder. Wetness drenched her pussy, and her channel contracted on emptiness. Tingles skipped down her skin, that fiery connection that came when demons coupled expanding. Fire and lightning. It was too strong, and they weren’t even inside her yet. That was dangerous, and she should push them away. Instead, she held them closer. For a little while, she got to keep them. Just for a little while longer, they were hers.

The thought was heady, the most erotic aphrodisiac she’d ever known.

Her skin felt too hot, too tight. Each drag of Kobal’s lips on her nipple sent ecstasy shooting straight to her sex. Raum bit her neck, hard, and she twisted in their embrace, gripping their hair tight enough to make them both wince. “I want you inside me now.”

She reached for Kobal’s fly to unfasten it and heard the heavy rasp of Raum’s zipper. His cock brushed against her ass, and she leaned forward to give him all the access he could want. He stroked her back, her ass, parting the globes so he could fit himself between them. The head of his dick rubbed her slick lips, teased her clit. Anticipation shot through her, and she pulled Kobal’s cock from his pants, pumping the hard shaft in her fingers and waiting for Raum to penetrate her pussy.

The blond demon pushed his hips forward, thrusting his cock into the ring of her fingers. His eyes slid closed, a muscle in his jaw ticked and a look that was close to agony contorted his face. “Please, Maron. More.”

Power exploded through her, that she could make one of her big, strong men beg. She all but purred as she bent farther forward and licked his cock from base to crown. He sucked in a breath, his hand splaying on the back of her head to urge her forward.

“Yes. More. Suck me, please.” His normally smooth voice was guttural with lust and only served to excite her more.

Raum probed her entrance with his cock, his hand sliding under her to toy with her clitoris. Dampness soaked her channel, and she could feel beads of moisture slipping down the insides of her thighs. Her muscles trembled, her reaction flaming out of control and red fire dancing at the corners of her eyes. She’d never felt her self-restraint slip so far, so fast, and she’d never have imagined that she’d like it so much. She took the tip of Kobal’s cock into her mouth just as Raum pushed deep inside her. The sudden forward jolt forced Kobal’s dick between her lips, all the way to the back of her throat. The musky, salty flavor of his skin filled her mouth, and she rolled her tongue along the underside of his shaft.

The way Raum’s cock stretched her was perfection. He was thicker than Kobal, but Kobal was longer—she had to work to take all of him into her mouth. Clenching her internal muscles around the cock thrusting in and out of her pussy, she made what was already a mind-blowing experience an even more erotic one. When Raum groaned and buzzed her clit with a shock of lightning, her back bowed, her channel contracting once, twice. She moaned, and a shudder passed through Kobal as the vibrations hit his shaft. He fisted his fingers in her hair, and it stung her scalp, but that just snowballed into the avalanche of sensation that rolled over her.

It was so good with them. She’d never felt anything like it. And she would never have it again. She would always be alone, always apart from everyone. She was too empty for anything else. It didn’t matter how much evil she’d eradicated or how good a hunter she was. She was still just the shell Shax had left, too afraid to reach outside herself again.

She sucked Kobal harder, shoving her hips back to take Raum deep inside of her. A tear slid down her face as each man pumped into her. She took them into her, driving them to the edge of madness. The feelings were divine, the emotions were frayed and painful, so she focused on the physical gratification. This she could handle. This she could give them. If she wished it were more, that was her own problem.

Groans spilled from both men, and the slender link she allowed with them sparked with erratic power. They were close to orgasm. She could feel it. Their lust fed her own, driving her ever closer to climax. Shivers ran down her skin, and she lost herself in the moment. The taste, the feel, the smell of sex and the power that surged through her, sweeping her along in the wicked, sensual rush of pleasure. Their breathing was ragged pants, and her lungs burned with the need to drag in more oxygen. Her tongue swirled around the head of Kobal’s cock, and then she drew him back into her mouth. Raum’s thrusts into her grew faster and more urgent, the slap of his flesh against hers adding to the carnal symphony.

Fire licked at the corners of her eyes, rippling over her skin. She knew they felt the heat erupting from her when they both shuddered. The tiny bond would have allowed them to experience her spiking needs. Her pussy flexed around Raum’s cock each time he entered her, and she sucked Kobal in long, regular motions. They’d all go over the edge soon, and she wanted them to fall together. It was as close as she’d get to the real thing.

“I need to come.” Kobal’s voice was a low, gritty rasp.

Raum’s lightning wrapped around her, arrowing between her legs. That was all it took to shatter her. She moaned, her pussy seizing in one protracted pulse of ecstasy. She closed her eyes, struggling not to burst into actual flames as her control shredded. Her sex clenched in another peak of orgasm every time Raum entered her channel, every time Kobal pushed into her mouth. She was taken, and it was beautiful. She crested again when their power flooded her in a hot wave, and this time they came with her. Their fluids filled her, and she swallowed the salty flavor of Kobal’s come, flicking her tongue over his dick to take every drop of him.

They offered her the bond again, lightning and fire that seemed to merge too easily with hers now, and she bit back a sob. That they’d do that, knowing how broken she was, made her heart turn over. She didn’t even know how to react. They should have pulled back, just as she’d thought they would. She wasn’t an easy woman to deal with, wouldn’t be anyone’s idea of an ideal bondmate, considering her past.

They slid out of her, and she heard them zipping their pants closed, but she stayed where she was, head down, panting, her mind still spinning in circles too dizzying to let her move.

“I’m not giving up on you, Maron.” Raum kissed the back of her shoulder, while Kobal stroked his fingers through her hair.

They helped her to her feet, tugging her clothes back into place for her. When was the last time anyone had done anything to take care of her? Sure, her female partners had watched her back during assignments just as she’d watched theirs, but that was business. This was wholly personal. The way Raum and Kobal touched her had nothing to do with hunting.

Her thoughts whirled, and she had no idea which way was up and which was down anymore. She needed to snap out of it and get her head on straight. They had a hunt coming, which she knew firsthand was never without danger. If one of the men was harmed on this case because she fucked up, she’d never forgive herself.

Ever.

She tugged her at the hem of her shirt, smoothing any wrinkles out of her clothing as they stepped off of the elevator. Nodding to the guards outside Samael’s office—a different set than the day before—she let Raum hold the door open for her. She stepped in and saw Samael standing over his desk, one hand braced on the wide surface, the other propped on his hip. His dark brows were drawn together over his eyes.

Thankfully, he looked too distracted to notice that his operatives reeked of sex and sweat.

As she moved closer, she could see pictures spread out over the desktop. It struck her, suddenly, how austere his office was. If her apartment had nothing personal in it, his space was plain old empty. There was a desk, chairs, a laptop, a cell phone, and that was it. She had no idea what his living quarters looked like, but since he was wedded to his job, she knew he spent most of his time here. It showed exactly how focused her boss was on his work and nothing else. No knickknacks, no mementos, nothing.

It was odd. She’d been in here thousands of times, and until Kobal had pointed it out to her, she hadn’t noticed or thought anything of it.

Shaking herself, she focused on the pictures on his desk while her partners drew up next to her to do the same. A man was featured in every shot, walking out of a bar, crossing a street, holstering a gun, slapping a young woman who wore almost nothing. Her breath caught when she saw who Samael had targeted this time.

“What?” Raum set his hand on the small of her back.

She pulled one of the pictures toward her, tapping her nail against the man’s face. “I know him.”

“You’ve tried to catch him before?” Kobal arched his eyebrows, his gaze reflecting surprise, as if it was beyond him that she might have failed to bring down an evil soul. She wanted to kiss him for the sentiment, but refrained. Bad. Idea. She shouldn’t even have let things go as far as they had in the elevator, but there was nothing she could do about that now. Best to keep going forward and stop looking back. She was usually pretty good at that, but the last day had dredged up memories she’d rather forget.

She shrugged and answered Kobal, “Not him. His boss. This guy used to be one of the underbosses for Vito De Luca. Looks like he took over after Lilim and I soul-sucked the big guy.”

“Name?” Raum snagged a couple of pictures and studied them.

Kobal pulled the thick manila file folder toward him and picked it up to read. “Bruno Costa. Former hit man, now crime boss, responsible for the murder of thirty-two people, and an accessory to a couple dozen more. Likes to torture his victims before he finishes them. Forty-six years old, married, no children, diabetic, heart attack waiting to happen.” He snorted. “Well, we can make that happen for him.”

The two men shuffled through the photos and paperwork gathered by Samael’s watchers. There was a suit coat draped across the table—probably swiped from a dry cleaner’s before it was laundered—that would have their target’s essence on it. Maron didn’t need to touch it. She’d been in the same room with him before. She’d sensed the corruption in him, but she couldn’t just snatch any soul she wanted. They had policies, red tape and bureaucracy even in hell. Somehow, she thought humans would be surprised by that.

“If he’s into the same things as Vito, he’s also a drug dealer, pimp, human trafficker and a dozen other nasty kinds of criminal.” She leaned her hip against the desk, going over in her mind a few of the better ways to get in to his office, assuming he used the same one as his boss. Lilim and she had pretended to be prostitutes, but she somehow doubted that would work as well with her current partners.

Raum frowned, picking up the coat to take in Bruno’s essence. “Getting a guy like this alone for long enough to take his soul is a challenge. I’d prefer not to fight off his henchmen.”

“Right.” Kobal sniffed, bending forward to smell the coat. Some demons went by feel, others by smell. She knew which ones they were now and wished she didn’t. She didn’t want to know more about them. It would only make it harder to walk away later.

“Why don’t you ask Maron how she took care of Vito? It might be useful information.” Samael’s voice was deceptively mild as he settled in his chair and steepled his fingers under his chin.

It was a test. The perfect test. Would her partners follow her lead in a situation where she had the advantage of previous experience, or would they prove to be just like Shax? Never trusting her fully, always thinking they knew best on any hunt. It would tell her exactly what she needed to know in the one trial run she had with them. No doubt Samael had chosen the case for just that reason. He was a wily bastard, she’d give him that.

Kobal eyes sparkled with mischief. “I would have asked, but it says right here in the file. She faked being a hooker.”

“Are there pictures?” A brief, wicked grin flickered across Raum’s face.

The blond demon’s eyebrows waggled suggestively. “No pictures, but maybe she still has the outfit.”

She grabbed the file from him and smacked him with it. “In your perverted, adolescent dreams.”

“Well, yeah.” He chuckled and fended her off. “I’d still respect you in the morning, I swear.”

The utter sincerity in his voice cracked her up. She knew she shouldn’t laugh because it would just encourage him, but she couldn’t help it. The two of them amused her. She shook her head and sighed. “You’re incorrigible. Can we focus on the job, now?”

“Sure, boss lady.” Kobal shrugged and slid his hands in his pockets. “You’ll take point on this assignment, since you’re the one who knows our target. Tell us what we’re doing.”

The right words, sure. But words were easy to say, not as easy to live with in the heat of the moment. She noticed Samael watching the by-play between them with keen interest—and approval—and she wanted to kick him. So, she liked the men he’d picked for her. Or maybe the men had gone to the boss and asked for her. She didn’t know, and she refused to let herself ask. Telling them about her past changed nothing for her just as it changed nothing for them. They were still at an impasse.

“Well, the first thing to do is some recon on his current location—and that of his goon squad.” She dropped the folder to the desk and tucked her hair behind her ear. “Let’s get this show on the road. Samael, you know where to send us.”

“Yep.” He waved his hand, and a roiling, roaring wave of black fire engulfed them.