Hunt the Moon

Chapter Twenty-six

“What happened?” Caleb demanded, as two mages carefully hauled us over the side of the car. Caleb had hold of me, but I threw him off and pushed through to where they were laying Pritkin facedown on the backseat. “Cassie!”

“It was that last blast,” I said numbly, staring at him. God, it looked worse from this angle. Red and black and white all mixed up together, blood and burnt leather and bone—

“This wasn’t caused by fire,” someone said.

I didn’t even look up to see who it was. I was watching them carefully pull away the remains of his coat. It was spelled to repair itself, but I didn’t think that would be happening this time. A few filaments were gamely trying to knit themselves back together, but there wasn’t enough left to work with. Despite the armor spells woven into it, almost the entire back of the coat was simply gone, eaten away in huge, bloody holes with little more than leather “lace” between them. And the body underneath—

“My God,” someone said as the remains of the coat were peeled back, taking some of his flesh along with it. The stars spun dizzyingly around me.

“Dragon blood,” Caleb spat, and somebody cursed.

I looked up. “But that can’t . . . we were nowhere near—”

“It must have spat it at you before you escaped,” he said roughly. “Get us to Central. Now!” he ordered the driver.

“He’s not going to last that long,” one of the other mages argued. “We have medical staff on the scene. They just arrived—”

“And you think they’re going to be able to handle this?”

“If they don’t, he’s gone. I’m telling you, we can’t—”

“Get out,” I said softly, my eyes on the ruined map of Pritkin’s back.

“And if we try the emergency unit and they can’t do anything?” Caleb demanded. “We’ll have lost any chance of—”

“There’s no time for anything else!”

“I said, get out!” I snarled, pushing at the nearest mage. “All of you, except for Caleb!”

“What?” the mage who’d been arguing with the boss, a young Hispanic guy, turned to look at me. “What are you—”

“If you want him to live, get the hell out of here!”

“Do it,” Caleb rasped, watching my face. I don’t know what it looked like. I didn’t care.

“Drive,” I told him.

The mages bailed over the side, taking a protesting Fred along for the ride. Caleb climbed into the front seat and I bent over Pritkin. The stench of burnt leather mingled with the metallic tang of blood was bad enough, but there was something else there, too, something dark, something wrong.

“Don’t touch him,” Caleb said harshly. “The stuff’s like acid. You get any on you and it’ll eat through you, too.”

I ignored him. I couldn’t do this without touching. I wasn’t sure I could do this at all. Pritkin was part incubus, which meant he could feed off human energy, almost like a vampire. It was the part he hated most about himself, the part that had once resulted in the death of someone he loved. But it was the only thing that might save him now.

I’d fed him once before, in a similar situation, but I’d had one major advantage then: he’d been conscious and an active participant. I didn’t know what to do with him out cold. If he’d been a vamp, I’d have opened a vein for him, held it over his mouth, made him take what his body desperately needed. But he wasn’t.

And incubi fed only one way.

I slid down to the floor by the seat, so that our faces were on a level. And realized that I had another problem. He was lying on his stomach, his head turned toward me, and there was precious little undamaged flesh that I could reach. I ran a hand through his hair, and as always it was soft, despite the dust and sweat that currently matted it.

I combed my fingers through it anyway, before trailing them over his equally dirty brow, down the too-large nose, across the too-thin lips. He hadn’t shaved today, maybe not yesterday, either, and the bristles rubbed my fingers as I smoothed over his cheeks, his jaw. My hand began to tremble as I reached his chin. The adrenaline that had kept me going for the past half hour was wearing off, but that wasn’t the only reason my hand was shaking. Part of it was fear for Pitkin, but part of it—

Part of it was fear of him.

I’d only seen him feed the one time, and he’d been oh, so careful. And with cause. The power he possessed could not just take some of a person’s energy; it could take all of it. Not that he would, not if he was awake and in his right mind and able to think clearly. But he wasn’t now. And while I’d never seen an incubus drain someone, I’d seen master vampires when they were seriously injured, seen what they left behind when they—

I cut off, breathing hard. Panic and exhaustion vied to put me down for the count, but I pushed them away angrily, along with my stupid, stupid cowardice. Pritkin would risk it for me. He’d do it for me.

I bent and found his lips with my own.

The kiss, if you could call it that, tasted like dust and ashes. I felt his breath on my face, faint and warm, but nothing else. There was no response at all.

I pulled off my tank top and unhooked my bra.

“What the hell are you doing?” Caleb demanded. “I told you not to touch—”

“Caleb. Whatever you see, whatever you hear, you forget,” I said harshly. “That’s an order.”

“Have you gone completely—”

“And here’s another one. Shut up.”

I picked up Pritkin’s hand, limp and lifeless but so familiar. I knew every bump, every callus, every line. These hands were the ones that had taught me the right way to hold a gun, that had corrected my stance in martial arts, that had done their best to teach me to throw a proper punch. And for a few, brief moments once, they had held me in passion.

I really, really hoped some part of him remembered that now.

I held his hand to my breast and kissed him again.

There was still no response, at least not from him, but I felt something, a brief tremor of sensation when his calluses dragged over sensitive flesh. Incubi raised lust in their partners because it was how they tapped into human energy. It was the conduit they used to feed, as blood was for vamps.

But if my brief sensation awakened anything in Pritkin, I saw no sign of it.

It didn’t help that I’d never felt less sexy in my life. It wasn’t the dirt or the exhaustion or the audience, although that sure as hell didn’t help. It wasn’t even the blood. Mostly it was the panic. The growing certainty that I was going to lose him if I couldn’t do this made it that much less likely that I could.

“If you can hear me, stop being a stubborn son of a bitch,” I whispered desperately. “Help me.”

I didn’t get a response, and we were running out of time. I could see it in the pallor of his face, hear it in the shallowness of his breath, sense it in some undefined way I couldn’t have named, but knew just the same. Tears of frustration welled in my eyes as I kissed him again, pushing it deeper, willing him to feel something, anything—

“That has to be the most pathetic display I have ever seen,” someone said, and my head jerked up. Because it hadn’t been Caleb’s voice.

I stared up at the glimmering outline of a man shot through with stars, perched casually on the back of the seat. He was barely visible against the night, but then we slipped into a ley line and the jumping blue energy bent around a familiar set of features. They were the same ones as on the body I held, but they looked so very different with that particular mind behind them.

“Rosier,” I spat, feeling my flesh crawl.

“What?” Caleb asked, and since he was still driving and not lunging over the seat with weapon drawn, I assumed he couldn’t see the demon who had somehow hitched a ride.

“I told you; just ignore everything,” I said roughly, as the deadly creature bent over his son. “Don’t hurt him!”

“Hurt who?” Caleb asked, confused.

“Just drive!” I snapped, trying to push Rosier away. He had a body when he chose, but he obviously wasn’t using it tonight. Because he was as insubstantial as a column of mist, and my hand went right on through.

“It seems you’ve done well enough on that score yourself,” Rosier said drily. “I always said you’d be the death of him.”

I felt tears welling up, of frustration, of anger and of mind-numbing fear. It made it hard to think, hard to breathe. Because he was right. I should have stayed in the damn hotel suite, should never have left it. This was my fault, completely and utterly, as much as if I’d put a gun to Pritkin’s head. He was going to die and I couldn’t help him, and I was going to have to sit here and watch it happen—

Just like Eugenie.

The very thought paralyzed me in horror. “No,” I whispered.

“Why are you sitting there, blubbering?” the demon demanded. “We’ve work to do.”

I looked up to find the pale outline more blurred than before, and forced myself to focus. I dashed angry tears away. “Why should I believe you want to help him? You tried to kill him!”

“Him, no. I tried to kill you, if you’ll recall.”

“You sent the damn Rakshasas after him!”

Rosier shrugged, as if sending a hit squad of soulless demons after his own son was a minor issue. “They were meant as a scare tactic—they couldn’t touch him while he was alive, after all.”

“They touched him plenty!”

“Only because you insisted on pulling him outside of his body. But do let’s discuss this while he finishes slipping the mortal coil, shall we?”

I stared at Rosier, the hateful, lying, deceitful bastard that he was, and just didn’t know. Pritkin hated his father, and while I didn’t know all his reasons, I assumed they were good ones; I had plenty of my own. Trusting him now—

“My dear girl,” he said, with a patient drawl in his voice. “If I wanted him dead, why would I be here at all? A few more minutes in your tender care should take care of things, with no interference from me.”

And he was right. Despicable as he was, he was right. I was sitting here mourning the man, and he wasn’t even dead yet. But he would be, would be very soon, if I didn’t get my shit together, if I didn’t figure something out. I pushed at Pritkin’s inert body, trying to turn him on his side, to gain more access, but he was heavy and I didn’t see how this was going to—

“Oh, for the love of—What he sees in you, I will never know,” the demon said, in evident amazement.

“What do I do?” I asked frantically.

“If you want someone to eat, you must first prepare the meal. And he is hardly in a position to do it for you. Here,” he said, with a sigh. “Let Daddy help.”

And without warning, something snapped in the air around us. It felt like an electric current, only softer, warmer, infinitely more enticing. It pulsed through me like a wave, making my skin flush, my nipples peak and my heart beat harder in my throat. I stopped pushing on Pritkin and curled up next to him instead, sighing as my hands slid into the front of his coat, seeking warmth, seeking skin.

I slipped them under his T-shirt, feeling hard muscle and soft hair, and kissed his neck. That didn’t get me anywhere, but when I gently bit the knob of his Adam’s apple, I felt it bob faintly under my lips. So I did it again, before moving up to take his lower lip between mine. It gave under my teeth, a damp, swollen heat, and somebody moaned, but I wasn’t sure which of us it was. I didn’t care.

Except about one thing. There were too many straps and buckles and obstacles in the way. There were holsters and belts and vials and guns, when I craved skin on skin.

But that wasn’t a problem for long. I watched in bemused fascination as a buckle on his shoulder slid out of its loop all on its own, the little prong popping loose from its leather jail , before the whole thing slithered to the floor. The same was happening with the belt around his waist, which turned loose and then jerked out from under him, tossing itself into the front seat. And then the zipper on his jeans slid open, as if an invisible finger was pushing it down.

I don’t remember much of the next few minutes. Everything went fuzzy, a warm, golden haze that caught the seconds, stretching them like taffy. I do remember a man’s chest, hard muscle under my hand, a sweeping ladder of ribs, the smooth rise of a hip . . . and Pritkin jerking back, his breathing heavy, his jaw like iron.

His weapons were gone, and most of his shirt, too, although, oddly, he still wore one arm of his coat. The jeans were also still in place, but they were sagging in front, showing off a ridged abdomen and a light brown treasure trail. I pushed at them impatiently, got them mostly off his hips, before a hand grabbed mine and forced it back against the seat.

“You don’t want this,” he told me harshly.

I didn’t say anything; I couldn’t think clearly enough to put into words just how wrong he was. I’d never wanted anything more in my life.

I slid the other hand behind his neck, tried to pull him down to me, only to have the same thing happen. My other hand hit the seat, trapped in his as securely as in a manacle. Pritkin wasn’t touching me otherwise, but he was right there, bare chest heaving, skin damp and moist, his one bare arm corded with muscle as he held me against the seat, helpless.

My body liked that, liked the fact that his eyes had bled black, with only a thin ring of emerald fire around the iris. But it liked a lot less that he was just staying there, wasn’t moving away, but wasn’t coming closer. It hurt not to touch him, an actual, physical ache, to see the rivulets sweat had carved down all those muscles, the swirling patterns it had made in his body hair, and not be able to trace them with my fingers, with my tongue....

He was saying something, but I didn’t listen. Didn’t care. My hands were fixed to the seat, but in holding mine, he’d immobilized his own as well. And we were close, so very close, that he couldn’t stop me from winding a leg around him, from arching up to rub my cheek against the soft fur on his chest, from finding a peaked nipple and biting—

“Cassie, please . . .” It came out choked, desperate, but to me it sounded like encouragement.

I bit down a little harder, and he cried out. I let my tongue lave the small mark I’d made, and his whole body shook in pleasure. It rippled into me, banishing the pain, but increasing the hunger. It felt wonderful, touching this much flesh, feeling his heart beat hard under my lips. But I wanted more, wanted to feel all that velvet skin on mine, wanted everything.

And so did he. Whatever he said, his hunger radiated down through his skin and into mine, making me cry out, making me crazy. I arched up and his chest barely brushed my erect nipples, but the shock of pleasure was intense, overpowering, magnifying the craving by a power of ten. I writhed against his hold, needing the pressing weight, the fierce cadence of skin on skin, the—

“Cassie!” A hand gripped my face, turning my eyes up to his, making me focus. Green eyes blazed down into mine, no longer black but strangely, unearthly bright. “You’ve been influenced. Do you understand? Remember how it felt before?”

A memory tugged at my mind, but it was vague, uninteresting. I pushed against his hands, throwing everything I had into it, but it was like fighting a statue. I cried out in pain and raw, unfulfilled need.

Pritkin cursed, but not at me. “What did you do to her?”

“What do you think?” someone laughed. “You know, you really should help the poor girl.”

“Stay out of this,” Pritkin snarled, and the tone was enough to send tongues of flame licking at pleasure points deep inside me. I whimpered.

“If I had, you’d be dead,” the other voice commented. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

He may have said more, but I didn’t hear. Because those warm hands had released me to close over my feet, gently sliding off my shoes before smoothing possessively over my calves. The sensation was exquisite, torturous, had my whole body jumping like a sensitized nerve ending. I started to reach out, to touch, to stroke, and immediately the hands were removed.

“No. Stay still.”

It was Pritkin’s voice, the one he used for command, the one I rarely heard but automatically obeyed. Usually because it meant that bad people with nasty weapons were aiming them at my head. I didn’t know what the cause was this time, but I fell back against the seat, breathing hard. And the hands returned.

Callused palms brushed the soft undersides of my knees, then slipped around to warm the outsides of my thighs. They smoothed all the way up my body, encountering no barriers until they reached the thin material of my track shorts. Rough skin caught on the smooth nylon as he slid his hands over my hips, fingers slipping just under the elastic of the waistband.

They just stayed there for a moment, and our eyes met in the almost dark. Pritkin’s held the same fierce, focused intensity they did when he was bending over me in the training salle, a sword resting hot against my neck. Only there was something more there tonight, something fierce and hot and possessive. I was shocked to feel myself start to tremble.

The feeling intensified as those big hands slowly spread against my skin. For a dizzying moment of clarity, I could feel everything: the fingers smoothing over the line of stitching running up each side of the shorts, the faint scratch of the tag against my skin, the sweat-damp material sticking to the small of my back. And then those hands began smoothing, oh, so slowly, back down my body. And they took the shorts with them.

I heard myself make a sound, nothing I recognized. And then time seemed to slow again, going soft and liquid. To the point that I could feel every inch of the thin, silky material as it skimmed over my belly button, glided past my hips, drifted across my pelvic bones and then stroked down my thighs.

Somewhere along the line, a spiraling, falling feeling took over my head, banishing any kind of rational thought. I didn’t fight it. It was something I needed badly—something that let me forget what we were and where we were, and all the reasons why this was a very, very bad idea.

The silky cloth brushed over my feet as he pulled it completely away from my body. He never said a word. But as I lay there, bare except for a brief thong, I slowly realized that he was shaking. The tremors were almost imperceptible, as controlled as everything else about him. But I felt them.

I tried to tell him it was all right, that I trusted him, that this wouldn’t change anything. But then warm hands found my skin again and slid up my legs. And all I could manage was a low sound, deep in my throat, as he slowly pressed my thighs apart.

He bent his head, not hurrying, but with an intensity on his face that made my brain start to short-circuit. Warm breath ghosted over me as he tracked up my body, pausing here and there for long seconds, as if breathing me in. But never stopping, never touching. His lips were millimeters from my flushed skin, so close that every breath raised goose bumps. And that’s where they stayed, until I thought I would scream.

I wanted to touch him; I needed to move. But I couldn’t seem to do anything but writhe in helpless counterpoint to that merciless nonassault. Within seconds, I was biting my tongue to hold back something perilously close to a whimper. Then those hands slid up my sides and that mouth finally made contact, closing on the tender flesh just above the bow on my thong.

I gasped at the warm, wet sensation, so different from the feel of hands. And suddenly it was much easier to lie still, my whole body going heavy and languid. I sank back, surrendering to the weight that settled between my legs, the cool feel of his hair and the shockingly intimate caress of lips and tongue on sensitive skin. Satisfying a monthsold craving, I laced my fingers deep into the soft mane, feeling his head move under my hands.

The tender mouth went on to feast on my thighs, drawing another sound of startled pleasure from deep within me, a sound that turned to a groan when the hot tongue found the crease where thigh met hip. It made me want to touch him again, to flow against him like water, to slide along that muscled warmth and return pleasure for pleasure—

“Stop,” he said mildly, nipping lightly at my hipbone. And my body reacted with a sweet, surprised rush.

He slowly tracked across my skin until I melted, becoming a malleable creature of pure response as the warm, wet onslaught moved over my hips, my stomach and then lower. His tongue ran around the top of the thong, tracing the lace, catching on the small satin bow. I couldn’t see what he was doing; his head was in the way. But I felt it when a warm mouth closed over that small scrap of material, brushing my skin as he started tracking back down my body. And pulled it off with his teeth.

I stared at him blankly for a moment. All my fantasies, and still I’d never guessed, never known that this man simmered all the time below those grumpy looks, that stubbornset jaw and stiff-necked control. Or maybe some part of me had known, and known the risk....

And then I couldn’t watch him anymore. I lay back against the seat, panting, as I was stripped bare to the warm night’s breeze. Rosier was gone, or at least I couldn’t see him. I couldn’t see Caleb, either, because of the seat back, but wasn’t sure if the opposite was true. At the moment, I didn’t care. I didn’t care about anything but the golden head now working its way back up my body.

He was drawing light patterns with his lips, his tongue, runes and symbols I was too far gone to read but that burned through my skin. The sensation was so intense, so overwhelming, that it felt like my body couldn’t contain it. He stopped at a point where, had I been wearing panties, he would have been below them, feasting on skin I’d just waxed a few days ago. But he wasn’t low enough, not even close, and that all-consuming need was building again.

I sank my hands into his hair, trying to direct that head to where I so needed it to be. But he ignored me, continuing to nuzzle softly against my flesh with that same deceptive gentleness. Until a stab of longing tore through me, so strong that I thought the emptiness might kill me if it went on much longer.

I did whimper then, a ragged, involuntary moan that didn’t even sound like me. It would have been embarrassing if I’d been capable of caring about such things. But I wasn’t and I didn’t, not about that, not about anything but the almost unbearable intensity of need. I gasped out his name on a sob.

And finally, finally, he dropped that last inch. Warm lips closed over me, a wet tongue circled me. And a fierce, spiraling ache of need shot down every nerve I possessed. There. Oh, there, yes, there.

A faint shudder ran through him and his breath caught audibly. “Yes,” he hissed, so soft it might have been my own imagination. But the hands on my hips tightened convulsively, and that tongue became demanding, forcing me open, learning me intimately, discovering what I needed.

And then I couldn’t think anymore. It was sensory overload, hearing the sounds he made deep in his throat, smelling that peculiar mix of sweat and gunpowder and magic that may as well have been his signature cologne, feeling the assault of that mouth, all wet, silken heat and fiery passion, nothing safe, nothing sane—

And then he gently bit down.

And oh, dear God.

Pleasure racked me, a deep, primal shudder of response followed swiftly by a surge of pure, molten lust. The rush of heat started in my belly and swept outward in an unexpected, uncontrollable wave, the raw force of it wrenching a cry from my throat. Merciless, he sucked me deeper and did it again. And my body simply couldn’t take any more.

Ecstatic release flashed like chain lightning through my lungs and thighs and every place in between, right down to my toes. It rippled into Pritkin, tightening his hands, causing his fingers to dig into my flesh. And the sound he made, deep and vulnerable and desperate, made my body shudder harder, as if trying to come again even in the middle of mind-shattering release.

“God—” I heard myself choke, and didn’t know if it was a plea for mercy or a prayer of thanks.

When it was finally over, I clung to the heavily muscled body, the skin fever hot with the thrum of magic pulsing just under the surface, gasping. A hand crushed my head to his chest, fingers tangling in my hair. I didn’t even try to move; didn’t think I could. I just stayed there, listening to his heartbeat pound strong and sure, if a little erratically, under my ear.

And then the car touched down, bumping asphalt, somewhere outside Vegas.