Claimed by the Demon Knight: Book One (7 page)

This feeling of physical closeness without pain was new to Tenuxhal. If it wasn't a fist in his jaw, a blade in his back, or hand wrapped around his throat, he hadn't experienced it. The gentle touch of another body, so intimate, still, and warm against his own was alien to him. He knew of it, these touches, but he had lusted only for battle and strength in his short time as a knight, finding neither the time nor interest for the inferior whores of Hell. He wouldn't sully his hands or his dick in some futile quest for carnal pleasure with those weak and distasteful wenches.

But here in this bed, while his mind all but refused to acknowledge the pleasure of the sensation, the semi he was sporting told the truth that his body was, at the very least, enjoying the contact. Elsi groaned again, and without even realizing it, Tenuxhal instinctively tightened his arm, pulling her closer until Elsi finally sighed and stilled.

Whether it was from the need to preserve the image he had of himself or not, Tenuxhal quickly shoved aside bothersome thoughts of gentleness and erections and stamped them out, preferring to slide into more comfortable behavioural patterns; like finding ways to fuck with his prey.

Oh yes. This was way too good to pass up. What an excellent way to taunt the woman to make her fight seriously the next time they clashed. Tenuxhal had a flare for pushing buttons. He smiled broadly at the thought and let his head sink into the pillow, staring at the soft, fine, chocolate hairs on the back of Elsi's neck, fighting the sudden urge to bite into it possessively. It was raw instinct. This human, this Rhoads, was on his turf, on his terms, in his care, and in his bed.

At least for now, for all intents and purposes, he owned Elsi Rhoads. The smile stretched impossibly wider. His prey was here and under his control. There was only one word he could think of that could describe the deep, pleasurable feeling that settled throughout his body. Satisfied.

He let his eyes slide closed, tilted his head into an awkward position so his giant horns didn’t stab Elsi or his pillow, and growled quietly in contentment, looking every bit the cat curled up in a morbid fit of ecstasy around the lifeless and eviscerated body of a bird.

T
enuxhal woke up many hours later to the unusual feel of warm, moist air on his face. He cracked open an annoyed eyelid, the one that wasn't pressed into the surface of the pillow, and had to fight to focus on the blur in front of him. Why was that? He blinked as the full picture came into view. If he'd had a human heart, it would have stopped beating. Not an inch from the tip of his nose was Elsi's.

The human must have turned herself over at some point. What was this shit? Tenuxhal berated himself. How in the hell had he become so soft that the witch could manage to flip herself over without even waking him? Even though Elsi was severely injured and no real threat. Was Tenuxhal really that comfortable with the woman? Had he learned nothing about underestimating his enemies? Or had he just been here alone for so long, save for weak demons, that his survival instincts had completely dulled? Both scenarios irritated him, even more so given his natural post-nap ill humour.

His thoughts abruptly snapped back to his current situation. The woman had her arms tucked upwards against her breasts, hands curled up just under her chin. Tenuxhal glanced down without moving his head. From the shape of the covers, Elsi seemed to be mostly in the fetal position.

He brought his eyes back up to the face, so quiet in repose, in front of him. He had never actually seen Elsi this close up for very long. They were always moving too swiftly in battle, faces contorted in anger, covered in blood, flying and teleporting, twisting and blocking, clashing for brief moments before distancing themselves and then clashing again. The only time he'd gotten a real good look at the bitches face for any length of time, it had been bathed in the glow of yellow from the Infernal Tempest forming in Tenuxhal's palm. And he'd still only really noticed those damn eyes and the satisfying fear in them.

But now, Elsi looked peaceful and relaxed, but for the slight ever-present scowl that seemed to be stitched into her brow, the only thing telling of the pain that nagged at her even in unconsciousness. She was young, hardly an adult, still girlish with smooth features and a round face, what human men would probably consider beautiful. The lipstick she was wearing when he first attacked her was all but gone, most likely rubbed off in the heat of battle.

Feeling oddly playful, Tenuxhal cautiously brought his face forward, closing the small space until the tip of their noses touched, then he wriggled it just to see what, if any, reaction he could get. Elsi didn't disappoint. The ticklish sensation made her wrinkle her nose and sniff. Even this little sign of irritation was enough to please the knight to no end, and he grinned fully, teeth and all, his own scowl lines momentarily disappearing as if fleeing from this foreign expression. A smile with no malice in it. Just a boyish jubilance at finding something innocently amusing.

Without warning, Elsi's hand shot up, smacking Tenuxhal hard enough in the mouth in the process to cause him to sink a sharp fang into his lip. He muffled a cry with his free hand, and for an endless moment, forcibly squashed the anger that stirred inside him, and the instinctive urge to smack the woman back twice as hard. Instead, he closed his eyes and waited for Elsi to wake up. He supposed he kind of deserved that any way for being such a prick. Hell, that was the best shot the human had gotten in so far. Heh.

No matter. He would just add it to Rhoads's tab. And when the time came, oh, he would make her pay.

~~~

E
lsi was bathed in pain. But the explosion in her head seemed to be settling slowly into a mere vicious pounding, a far cry from the intolerable screaming and tearing agony that it had been before. Whenever that was. Her concept of time seemed to have flown out the window at some point, and her location was a complete mystery as well. Who cared? Where she was and how she'd gotten here was less important than how much pain she was in. Pulsing shock waves beat relentlessly against the insides of her skull, keeping a sadistic rhythm with her heart. It was far too hard to think.

True consciousness returned slowly, ebbing in and out like gentle ocean waves, pulling her unwillingly, painfully closer to the outside world. Long hours passed and she was becoming more aware piece by piece, able to focus for brief moments on the things around her and not just the throbbing in her head. She was lying on her right side, the ground was soft, and she was warm. Warm. She had been so cold before. She was covered with something... blankets. This was a bed maybe? Yes. Good. She was cooking with gas now.

With monumental effort, she pried open one recalcitrant eyelid just enough to let some light filter through her lashes and reach overly sensitive eyes. She winced even in the low, silvery light of the room. That was as good as things were going to get for now.

It took a long time before her half-lidded eye would cooperate and focus on anything at all, and she struggled to bring into focus a world that was just a blur of wet eyelashes and a wash of dull colours cast in shadows. Elsi wanted to know where she was, but she couldn't really see much of her surroundings because something bulky seemed to be in the way. She blinked away the moisture from glazed eyes and found that she could finally make out most of the bleary shape in front of her face. It was a person.

"Morning, honey."

Now, Elsi did have a human heart, and she was pretty sure it stopped beating.

Her reasoning skills were slow and dulled, but this, this low voice, silky yet grating, this face in front of her... she knew. And she feared.

The knight waited to let the situation sink in (the witch was known for being a bit dull at times) before he punctuated the greeting with a slight upward tilt of his head and quick forward motion, and planted a moist kiss firmly on Elsi's lips. He pulled back to observe the results of his actions, with a wide toothy grin, one that was both happy and vicious.

The young woman's mouth opened and she gasped. Her brain was in total gridlock. She didn't even have the sense to wipe the demons glistening saliva from her lips. The utterly surreal and entirely unwholesome situation was just too much for the already overtaxed body and mind of Elsi Rhoads and she did what any young, hot-blooded female warrior would do in her place.

She passed out.

Tenuxhal let his head fall back as far as it would go and laughed out loud, a manic sound, frighteningly similar to the way it had been when he'd killed that freak that had bested him in battle for his position as a knight and taken back his rightful place as one of the most powerful demon knights in Beelzebubs army. It took him several minutes to contain his mirth. He hadn't planned that out at all. It had just seemed the most natural thing to do at that moment. And the woman's reaction had been...outstanding.

"Tch. You're too much, Rhoads." The knight grinned to himself, and reaching up, tousled Elsi's already disheveled hair in what looked like an affectionate manner, mindful of the injury, before wiping away a stray tear of amusement, that had traced a path down his own cheek. He closed his eyes and purred internally. Now that had been entertaining.

It looked like this was going to be fun. Seemed he had made the right call after all.

~~~

I
t was only an hour later when Tenuxhal awoke again. Testing Elsi's forehead with his palm, he found that the witch's temperature felt closer to whatever was normal for a human. Rhoads didn't stir at the touch, but her face seemed to speak of sleep now more than it did unconsciousness. Satisfied with the woman's condition, and confident that she wasn't going anywhere, Tenuxhal quietly worked his way out from under the sheets and stood, stretching himself entirely, arms extended upwards, joints popping under the pressure of taut muscles. He released a bone-cracking yawn, trying not to be too loud about it, but it still approached the likeness of a muffled lion's roar.

God, he was stiff. He needed to get out and burn off some restless energy. The human was doing better now, and her color was starting to come back. But she'd probably sleep for several more hours at least. Plenty of time for Tenuxhal to make a meal of a few weaklings, train for a bit, and, oh, the witch would need to eat, so he'd have to go scrounge up some food and drink. Luckily Beelzebub had left behind a fully stocked energy preserved food supply. So the food would technically last forever, or at least as long as the woman held up. But Tenuxhal would be damned if he knew how to prepare any of it.

~~~

S
he had to call up all her strength just to sit up, but finally managed the monumental task and levered herself upright, arms braced behind her. She cringed as her head and ribs warned her in unison that she shouldn't be moving this way, and she let himself carefully slide back down, then rolled onto her side, the one with the least number of injured ribs.

"Welcome back to the land of the living, witch. 'Bout fucking time, too," a voice said with no small amount of malice.

Elsi opened her eyes and raised her head at the sound of the smooth tenor that had a taunting and cheerful quality to it, and shot the speaker a look of disbelief and annoyance. Land of the living? She mumbled her heated response mostly into her pillow.

"...Fucking Hell." Asshole.

"Tch. Just a joke, witch. Lighten up." His mouth held a slight smile, but his silver eyes glinted warningly.

You're in my house now.

Tenuxhal may have been gentle when playing nursemaid, but now that the witch was awake and soon to be mobile again, he wasn't having any of it. He wouldn't give Rhoads an inch if he could help it. One inch was all this human needed to start running off at the mouth. No. Tenuxhal would make it very clear who was in charge in his domain. It was time Rhoads learned a little about respect. The question was, how hard was she going to make it on herself? The knight chuckled to himself. If he knew Rhoads, and he thought he did, the human would make it very, very hard.

Good stuff.

~~~

W
ell, that was an absolutely stupid idea.

Elsi was sitting up unsteadily, her legs hanging over the side of the bed, her body wrapped in a white sheet. Tenuxhal stood in front of her with a plate in his hand. Elsi had taken the proffered food, a simple piece of bread and some water, and had managed to swallow a small bit of each. Tenuxhal grunted at her, and Elsi shook her head. She didn't want anymore.

Being upright and eating whilst suffering from a combined skull fracture and severe concussion could never be a good combination in anyone's book, and Elsi had to brace herself as a wave of dizziness suddenly washed through her, bringing with it the unnerving feeling of something being inherently wrong, something bad stirring insidiously inside her.

The vague feeling quickly focused itself and Elsi promptly, and without any sort of polite warning, lurched forward and threw up all over Tenuxhal's feet.

The knight's expression was frozen into a myriad of disbelief, shock, and disgust, his teeth exposed in outrage. In a flash, he ripped Zareiete from his hip and in one swift movement it was pressed flat against Elsi's cheek, the tip of it resting against her ear.

Elsi didn't have the internal resources to even notice the blade as she panted from the exertion and then coughed harshly as the foul tasting bile burned her throat and mouth. When the young adult managed to raise her head just enough that she could see Tenuxhal's face when she glanced up, a thousand words couldn't adequately describe the expression that she saw there, and the blur of emotions that passed over it. A few could cover the basics though. Utterly shocked. And murderous.

Elsi couldn't care less at the moment about the knight's emotional state of mind, distressed as it was. She was wholly preoccupied with not going through a repeat performance as the taste and texture worked its way around her mouth. The exquisite burning sensation scalded her throat and, oh God, it had gotten up her nose too. She could smell and taste it in her nose. Her eyes watered and her stomach roiled again. She sucked up several deep breaths as she hunched in front of her captor.