My Darkest Passion (35 page)

“You know you can stay, sweetheart.”

“I think Addison’s had enough of me for now.”

“Well, now, maybe that’s true. See you later, then.”

She gave Harsh a long look. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

Nikodemus held her hand a moment longer and then watched Carson leave the room. He’d let his power seep back into the room, and the hair on Addison’s arms pricked from the effect.

She put her hands on her hips. “If a warlord swears fealty to another one,” she said to Nikodemus, “what happens to any sworn kin he already has?”

“Interesting question.” The warlord nodded thoughtfully. “How about we make this concrete so there’s no confusion and say you meant what would happen if you swore an oath to me?”

“Okay.” She stayed as she was, legs apart, hands on her hips. “Let’s pretend that. What happens?”

“Your oath to me would flow through to your sworn kin. They’d share your obligations to me but would not be directly obligated to me. If you broke your oath to me, they’d suffer. Not as much as you, but they wouldn’t get off unscathed.” He nodded quickly. “That might break your bond with them. But I wouldn’t be able to interfere with anyone sworn to you, and I think that’s what you’re asking.”

“You need all the help you can get.”

“True.”

“I’ll swear fealty to you, then.”

“I don’t know about that. You think you’re ready this time?”

She faced Tau and the others. “If any of you have a problem with that”—she didn’t look at Harsh—”now’s the time to speak up.”

Nobody said anything.

“Good,” Nikodemus said. “Let’s see if we can get this done.”

She knew what to expect this time, and, unlike before, she was determined. Ready. Convinced this was right. She said the words she’d memorized so long ago, and then, with his index finger, Nikodemus touched the side of her throat. Just a brush. Tension coiled in her, but not fear. Her psychic link to Nikodemus meant she knew his intentions.

“The blood exchange doesn’t have to be from here,” Nikodemus said. “Arm’s fine. Anywhere, really.” His finger pressed against her throat. “But it’s better if it is. Because this way, it’s in close. More touch. If you fall, I can catch you, easy.” He sent her one of his incandescent grins. “Because, you know, I’m just that good.”

She laughed because he meant it to be funny and it was. His delivery was perfect. “I can take whatever you dish out. Besides, Harsh would catch me.” She looked at Harsh. “Wouldn’t you?”

He inclined his head. “I would.”

The warlord clapped his hands. “So. We’re doing this.”

She was aware, in the cyclone of the magic thrumming through her, that Nikodemus was not touching her the way he would have any other demon about to swear to him. Only one hand. She could, if she were inclined, step away from him. He slid his finger across the side of her throat, a feather-light touch with an icy counterpoint following in its wake. She knew from the impressions she was getting from him that she was bleeding.

Harsh was pulled into the connection, or maybe he entered it, but he was as wrapped up in this as Nikodemus; the reaction to the scent of her blood, the building magic. Nikodemus bent his head, and his mouth touched her skin. He straightened and turned his head to one side. With the side of a finger, he nicked the skin along the side of his throat, and she moved in. Close. A hand on his shoulder. With the taste of his blood, a circuit closed, and that was that.

Nikodemus released her, and she stepped back as he held out a hand to Harsh. “You coming back to me?”

She held her breath when Harsh hesitated.

“I owe you,” Harsh said to Nikodemus. “I understand that debt. As does she, for that matter. That’s why we’re here. But if it weren’t for her, I would be dead.” His fingers tightened around hers. “Without her, I might as well be dead.”

“That so?” Nikodemus glanced at Addison.

“You know it is,” Harsh said.

Nikodemus frowned. “You mean this? You’ve been with me from day one. Jesus, Harsh, you were the first mageheld Carson severed. You were there before there was a Carson and me.” He made an expansive gesture. “Before any of this.”

“I know. And I am proud to have been.”

“And?”

“You tell others they can swear to another warlord.”

“I do.”

“I could swear to Durian, then.”

“You could.”

“Or Kynan.”

Nikodemus snorted.

“Or Addison.”

“You were only just released from her.” The warlord sat on the couch. “Since day one, Harsh. All I ask is that you take time before you decide.”

37

“W
arlord,” Iskander said once she and Harsh were outside again. He’d taken off his shirt and had been lying in the Pickup bed, soaking up the sun. He sat and she saw the stripes on his face continued down the side of his body. He jumped to the ground and when he had his shirt back on, he lifted a fist. She bumped her fist to his. “Glad to have you on board.”

“Thanks.”

“You want to be squished between Harsh and the door or Harsh and me?” He grinned with such joy she couldn’t help smiling back. “I can tell you which one would be more fun for me, but your choice.” He held up a hand. “No guarantee the door will stay shut. I’m sure the wire will hold.”

She laughed but Harsh said, “I’m afraid he’s not kidding, Addison.”

“He’s not?” She looked between the two men. “In that case, I’ll take the middle.”

Iskander stooped to remove a wooden block jammed behind one of the back wheels. He threw it into the bed, and they piled into the cab. “I didn’t get the chance to say this before, but nice to meet you, Addison,” he said as they rolled down the driveway. In neutral.

“Nice to meet you, too. Shouldn’t you start the engine?”

“Oh, sure, but it’s more fun this way.” He turned the key and the engine thrummed on. “You and Harsh should come to my place for dinner. I’m not just inviting you because you’re sworn to Nikodemus. I was going to ask you anyway. Harsh, too. My wife is an amazing cook.”

“Wife?” Addison said.

“Yeah.” He lifted his left hand and jiggled his wedding band with his thumb. “Paisley wanted to put a ring on it, and I thought that seemed like a great idea.”

Most of the way to the freeway he chatted about his wife, sports, or all the perks that came with a wife who owned a bakery. On the freeway, they couldn’t talk because the driver’s side window fell down into the door well, and they couldn’t hear each other over the rush of air through the cab.

Before long, they were in the city, and he was pulling up in front of a very, very large house in a neighborhood filled with mansions. Though an archway that led to the rear of the house, she could see the SUV, not that she needed that visual to know Tau and the others were here. “We cleared out when you went dark, Harsh, so you should be pretty private here.”

Harsh pushed at the pickup door. “Thanks for the ride.”

“Anytime. Dude, undo the wire and it’ll open right up. I’ll ask Paisley about dinner and let you know.” He leaned toward the passenger-side window when Harsh had at last opened the door without resorting to magic. Iskander touched three fingers to his bowed forehead. “Take care, warlord.”

“Thanks.”

“See you two for dinner this weekend or next. I’ll tell Paisley and get it set up. You’re not a vegetarian are you?”

“No.”

“Give the door a shove to make sure it closes. Hey. Thanks.”

Inside the house Harsh turned on a few more lights than Tau and the others had left on. She was too on edge to look around much. She wrapped her arms around her waist and bounced from one foot to the other. Harsh threw his keys onto a table. “Something to eat or drink?”

“Not yet.” She followed Harsh upstairs. And damn, yes, this was a big house. There were signs the previous occupants had hastily left, a couple of empty boxes, bedrooms where closets and drawers were open and empty.

Harsh led them to the third floor, all the way at the back of the house. A series of wooden medallions rimmed the door, each one a protective ward keyed to Harsh. She glanced around the living room while he reset the wards. It was nice. High ceilings, lots of windows and strong colors. The walls here were bright, bright yellow.

“I’m almost never here these days, what with all the traveling I was doing for Nikodemus. Bedroom’s this way.” She followed him out of the room. “Guest bathroom. Second bedroom this way. I’ve been using it as an office.”

There was another bathroom in the master bedroom. This took money, a house so big the master suite was practically its own apartment. “Do you guys just end up rich? Poof? Here’s a bucketload of money?”

“In my case, I invested wisely and well when I was younger, that’s part of it. But, Nikodemus, like most of the Entelechy, has had millennia to work out how to retain, consolidate, and grow his fortune, and that’s on top of the fact that we are what we are.”

“Meaning?” She sat on the edge of the mattress.

“The demonkind are not bound to the world the way humans are. Nikodemus has perfected the art of interacting with human infrastructures with an eye to wealth retention. He hires the best and pays them accordingly. There’s also the fact that when we decide to join the workforce, we tend to be especially good at what we do.”

“Oh.”

Harsh sat beside her and slid his arms around her, and she wanted nothing more than to melt into the contact. She needed touch. Craved it. Even without the bond between them, she felt good with him like his. He opened himself to her, and she wrapped her arms around him.

“I wish,” he said softly, “that none of this had happened. I wish you were home and happy, with nothing but normal regrets. But you’re here”—he tightened his fingers in her hair and moved closer— “and I am very glad of that.”

She twined her arms around his shoulders and neck and he did not resist the downward pull. This wasn’t about sex, she told herself, even as the heat of sexual arousal slid around her limbs and her heart. She wanted contact. Craved his touch. Warm hands, the spark of recognition between them that they were kin, with that incredible electricity between them.

His hands wandered, and that was lovely for several reasons, most of all because this wasn’t changed. She wanted him, she thought he was sexy as hell. “What the hell,” she said. “Just, fucking what the hell.”

”Meaning?”

“This.” She grabbed the bottom of his T-shirt and yanked it up and off him, and he laughed, low and welcoming. As he lay back on the mattress, he growled, a sound that came from the middle of his chest, and she about came apart just from that. Except he was not blocking off the part of him that was magekind, and he was doing it because the rat bastard knew how much that turned her on.

She worked at the buttons of his jeans, and he let go of her to toe off his shoes and she pushed her hands under his shirt and touched his skin, that warm, smooth skin, so much darker than hers, so beautifully brown, and that impossibly black hair, and he had his hands sliding underneath her shirt. A cry burst from her because they weren’t skin-to-skin yet and she needed that.

He grabbed two handfuls of her shirt and pulled up, and through the fog of whatever was going on now, she saw him look at her body, and it was not dispassionate or calm. She sat up to help him. A sound came from him that was half laugh and half triumphant growl, and she could not help but touch him. Caress him. Touch his power. Both kinds.

Harsh reached around and unhooked her bra. She pulled it off and, oh God, yes, his hands closed on her breasts and they were falling, falling to the mattress again, and there wasn’t only the need of the kin to touch between them, but lust. Pure lust. A need that shook her. She shuddered with it and when Harsh leaned forward and took her nipple in her mouth—the pierced one—she fell into him and didn’t even stop to think about what separated them, and she had this strange moment when she could not tell the difference between herself and him or between his body and hers.

Dimly, she was aware he was working one-handed at his fly. “Let me,” she said.

“Please.”

She pulled down the tab of his zipper and her brain scrambled through the steps of getting him naked. The part of him that was kin snaked around her, inside her head, but there was this amazing, amazing sizzle that came from the part of him that was magekind. She slid off the bed and yanked off his jeans, socks, and boxers.

He clasped his hands behind his head, daring her to look at him. Naked. A naked demon with a penis that was ready and, honestly, the most beautiful thing she’d seen. She stared at his cock, his beautiful, big body, and then the flex of all that muscle when he leaned forward and unfastened her jeans, and she slid off her panties and stayed where she was because he had a hand over her belly, and he was looking at her like he wanted to devour her.

“Now,” she said. “Now, Harsh.”

“Whatever you want, warlord.” He pulled her toward him, and she seated herself on him. He grabbed her hips and thrust up, hard, exactly as hard as she needed it, and then his mouth was on her breasts again, kissing, sucking, nipping, and the psychic link between them widened and deepened and incinerated them both.

Before long she was on her back, and he was over her, on top of her, thrusting into her, and she arched into the contact and drew him close, hands on his ass so she could feel him flexing, and she opened to him, physically and psychically and she didn’t think about anything but how close she was to orgasm and her absolute trust that he would never, ever do anything to hurt her. Even without an oath between them, she trusted him absolutely.

Just when she thought she was going to drop into exquisite release, his magic, his other magic flared through her and it was like being on some kind of psychotropic drug because that connection sent her body and mind into a place where colors and lights went off in her head, and the only thing she understood was the need to possess and control the demon she was fucking. Harsh’s thoughts. Harsh’s desires, and the thrill of touching that alien magic.

They both went still. His eyes weren’t normal anymore. His irises were blood red. Twin pools of crimson. He pushed up on his hands and stared into her face. His lips parted, and their connection doubled, tripled, turned into colors. She touched his magic. Both sides, and it was as if they existed only in this moment.