The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers (27 page)

I'd lived my whole life being nice, doing the right things, saying the right
things—even if they weren't true. Well, not anymore. Sometimes, you gotta
love somebody enough to tell them the ugly bald truth.

"You really want to get into this right now?" he asked.

Oh, I knew I'd be in the Cave of Visions in the next hour or so. I'd be in
the crosshairs with all of my strength, and now, all of his. I knew I should
probably spend my last moments with him making red-hot griffin love instead of
poking him with a verbal fork, but this was more important.

He was more important.

He let out a jagged laugh, heavy with regret. "You want to know the
truth? I'm actually okay with the fact that you didn't tell me right away. I
know I was pressuring you to leave things behind and head to Greece with
me." He dug a hand through his dark hair, making it spike awkwardly.
"That's why I didn't tell you I loved you. I knew it would scare the hell
out of you." He braced his hands on his knees, as if he wasn't quite ready
to say what came next. "I know you hate what I do to protect you,
Lizzie." His face was unreadable in the moonlight, the set of his jaw
intense. "And you're not sure what I'm about to give you. But at some
point, you have to relax a little, let go enough to accept the gift."

The truth of it hit me hard. I couldn't accept him or the Red Skulls or
anybody. I'd wanted to do this on my own from the very start. Look where it had
gotten me.

A little lizard scurried over a large rock to our left, noticed us and took
off in the other direction.

"What did you see when I fought with Max?" he asked.

"I saw what happened when he died." I told him about Sid the fairy
and how he'd reversed time. "Like him or not, Max's power is the only
thing slowing them down. For now. If the demons reach six hundred sixty-six, or
succeed in whatever they have planned tomorrow night, I'm afraid Max won't matter
anymore."

"Neither will we."

The cool desert air settled around my bare arms as I tried to remain stoic,
resolved. I had one more question and it was worse than the fifth layer of
hell.

"Those things I asked you before," I said, throat dry. "I
needed to know you'd be honest, because I need the truth about one more
thing." I willed myself to say what I'd feared since the minute we set
foot in Vegas. "When are you going to decide it's too much?"

His brows knitted. "I don't understand."

"This," I said, holding up my marked palm. "When are you
going to figure out that it's too hard? Face it. I'm a pain in the butt. I
mean, you love me, but you also get my crazy grandmother, a bunch of
loudmouthed biker witches, demons that want to have you for lunch and a
channeling that might not be too different from the last ceremony that sent us
straight to hell."

He actually smiled.

Joker. I planted my hands against his chest and pushed. "You're
officially mad."

I took a drop-dead gorgeous griffin, and I broke him.

He cradled both of my hands in his. "I'm supposed to—" he
lifted my chin. "Here, look at me." He edged us into a bright patch
of moonlight. Damn the man. He couldn't have looked more sincere. "I'm
supposed to give up the only woman I've ever loved, over a few
complications?"

Well, when he put it that way…

"I'm not talking about giving up your Sunday golf game to go have
brunch with my parents." Did griffins even play golf? And what would my
uptight, society parents have to say about me dating a shape-shifter?

His thumbs traced circles on the tops of my palms. "Ah yes, demons
instead of brunch. But love isn't about what's easy. I think you would have had
an easier time if you'd denied your demon slayer calling, stayed home in
Atlanta to teach preschool."

True. No matter how much I disliked growing up in a family where fitting in
and looking good somehow made you a better person—I had to admit, it
would have been easier to stay with what I knew, even if it wasn't what I
loved.

Dimitri's thumbs caressed the hollows of my wrists. "I love you because
love to me is about finding the person you want to be with." He drew me
in, kissed me. "And being there no matter what."

"Through hell and back?"

"Through demons and in-laws."

He drew my marked hand to his lips and kissed me, right there on the palm.
Tears singed the back of my eyes as he caressed the marks.

"Don't look so surprised."

I couldn't help it. He loved me, demon mark and all.

"Now I figure," he said, kissing his way down my neck. "We've
got about a half hour before anyone comes looking for us. And I have lots of
energy."

Mmm, happy pings shook me to the core. "What shall we do?"

He used his incredible griffin strength to rip my leather skirt clean up the
middle, and then he showed me.

He tackled me against the cool rock and kissed me thoroughly. His fingers
roaming—oh yes, please—everywhere. They pushed up under my breasts,
teased my nipples, circling them, plucking them, sending heat coursing through
me until he did the whole thing over again with his tongue.

"E-yow," I said, nearly banging my head against the rock. "If
you're trying to take my mind off things, it's totally working."

"Not well enough." He slipped a hand down between my legs,
stroking me, spreading me until the only thing I could think about was his
fingers and where, oh where, they'd go next. His tongue tortured my nipples
while he dipped one finger, then two inside me. I moved with him as his thumb
rubbed, teased. Oh wow.

I felt his power surge, pure and white. He didn't stop. Even when I tried to
pull him to me, he kept rubbing, kissing like he couldn't get enough. I didn't
know how long it went on, only I'm not the patient woman I thought I was. It
had been too long. We'd been through too much. And I could feel him, hard and
ready, against my thigh.

So close.

I wound my fingers into his hair and kissed him hard on the mouth. He pulled
me closer, his erection pressed firmly against me. Slowly—ohh,
eee—so slowly he ran himself along my slick flesh.

Over and over.

I traced a hard, flat nipple with my finger. "Dimitri." He had to
know this was cruel and unusual punishment.

And still he rubbed against me, showing me every inch of him, letting loose
an avalanche of sensation. My entire body shook with the need to have him.
Inside me. Now.

Mmm, the things this man taught me.

I twined my arms around his super-heated back, nibbled on his ear. "I
want you."

He chuckled against my neck and flipped me over. "I know."

Splayed over the flat rock, I reached back and found the slippery tip of
him. He groaned as I circled once, twice. He gripped my hand, slammed it
against his brick wall of a thigh and drove straight into me.

He filled me to the hilt and I heard myself whimper with the sheer joy of
it.

I opened myself to him and felt him fill me up with his strength, his power,
himself.

"Trapped between a rock and a hard Dimitri. It feels soo good." He
proceeded to pound into me. He snaked his hands down my backbone, as if he
could pull me deeper, push me harder. "There, there, there. Right
there!" I dropped my head forward. He'd found the sweet spot. Lord in
heaven above.

He gripped my hips and focused on that one spot. Filled it, ground against
it, worked it until I was quite sure my legs weren't holding me up anymore. He
was. And he pinned me, pushed me until I came in a blind rush of sensation like
I'd never felt before. It swamped me, ripped through me. Sweet griffins, it was
almost like floating.

Dimitri collapsed warm and steady against my back. We lay there for a few
minutes, spent. At least I was. Dimitri probably had a wicked case of blue
balls.

"Hold on," I said, trying to see if my knees still worked. I
rolled out from under him and lay splayed for a second on the rock. Coolness
seeped through me. Seemed like we'd really warmed up our section of rock.
Dimitri, heavy-lidded with his streaked hair irreparably mussed, shot me a
smart-aleck smile.

I lifted a finger to tell him to wait. "I'm going to—ohh." A
late orgasmic ping zipped through me from my sweet spot down to my curling
toes.

"Are you all right?" he asked, quite amused for a man in pain.

I nodded, not trusting my voice—or the pings. "Are you?"

He nodded weakly.

"I'm going to take care of you," I finally croaked.

He laughed and coaxed me into his arms. "Oh, that's what you were
moaning about over there? Well, in that case, you already did."

"I didn't notice."

"You were busy."

"No kidding," I said against his sweat-slicked chest. Not minding,
for once, that I didn't have a complete grasp of the facts, or anything else
for that matter.

He'd given me everything of himself that he could, despite the cost. I'd
make sure it was worth it.

I curled up warm against him, trying not to think about what we had to
face—the channeling ceremony, and worse, the demons tomorrow night. Now
I'd robbed this beautiful man of his energy and strength, the very things he'd
need to defend himself if I failed.

Dimitri's mouth found my shoulder, the crook of my collarbone. I'd about
closed my eyes when he yanked his mouth away and coldness flooded the places
he'd just kissed.

A blue light shot out over the ridge and I fought the urge to burrow into
Dimitri's arms and never leave. "Please tell me it's the Red Skulls."

Dimitri rubbed my back, as if trying to keep away the chill. "It
is." He kissed me on the forehead. "It's time."

"Hup, hup!" Grandma ambushed us as we rounded the horse stables.
"Don't tell the Red Skulls about Armageddon."

Yeah. No problem. It could be our little secret.

Her gray hair tangled in a cloud of Ziploc bags packed with spinning,
twirling spells. "Move your keister, Lizzie. You think the Cave of Visions
is open all hours like the Taco Bell drive-thru?"

Oh please. I'd been summoning my strength. And sacrificing my new-ish
leather skirt. I wound my fingers a little more tightly into Dimitri's grip.

"Nice outfit." Grandma waggled her brows at the tunic I'd made out
of Dimitri's black T-shirt. Yeah, well lucky for me, the man needed plenty of
material.

I'd told myself I wouldn't get embarrassed, but the heat crept up my neck
and I found myself blushing a dozen shades of scarlet. "I don't want to
hear it." Not from my Grandmother. Not from anybody.

Where were those dark obnoxious powers when I needed them?

"Frieda!" she hollered over her shoulder, the cabins ablaze with
light behind her. "Lizzie needs some underwear!" She turned back to
me. "And make it snappy. No grandbaby of mine is going to channel with her
whatnots flapping in the breeze."

A devilish grin played across Dimitri's features. I dropped his hand and
inched my fingers up his sensitive rib cage, enjoying his sharp inhale.
Don't
mess with me, babe
. I wound my fingers through his hair, ignoring the way
the sweat from our encounter made it curl at the ends, and dragged his luscious
noggin down to my level. I ran my thumbs along his cheekbones. "Next time
you rip my skirt clean up the middle, I'm going to do the same to your
drawers." He was so darned kissable, until his strong jaw twitched into a
smirk.

He nipped my lips, sending a ripple of pleasure straight to the part of me
that, hm, felt well loved. "That a promise?"

"She needs clothes too!" Grandma added, for the listening pleasure
of anyone within a fifty-mile radius.

Oh for the love of Pete. "Can't you at least try to keep a
secret?"

Grandma paused in the middle of coaxing a glittering spell from one of the
bags at her neck. "Why?"

Like I could explain the concept of privacy to a woman who spent Saturday
nights tossing fart spells at her friends.

Well I refused to be embarrassed. Or at least I wasn't going to admit it.

A flashlight broke through the moonlight, bobbing as Frieda crunched across
the rocky soil, waving a pair of pink leather pants. I'd borrowed clothes from
the blonde witch before. Being a demon slayer tended to be hard on the
wardrobe.

I could smell Frieda's cigarettes before I could even get a clear look at
the pants. "Grabbed my lucky ones!" She dragged me behind the
rough-hewn horse barn, chomping on spearmint gum. She shoved the pants in my
general direction. Zippers crisscrossed the hot pink leather.

"Thanks," I said, reaching for the only pair of leather pants more
obnoxious than the snakeskin ones Frieda had on.

The earthy smell of manure tickled my nose and I soon figured out why. I
stood uncomfortably close to a pile of the stuff as Frieda showed me how to
cram myself into her pink pants. Because they couldn't have a zipper up the
front like every other pair of pants in creation.

"See?" she said, blowing the sorriest looking bubble I'd ever
seen. "That there side zipper goes like a vee all around your girly parts,
but you don't want to open that or, well, you'll be in for a world of hurt. You
want to use the side zipper here and then attach it back to the back zipper on
the butt."

My fingers fumbled with the thick leather and stiff zippers. This was worse
than sudoku. Finally, I managed to make everything fit, even the matching
bustier.

"Tar and feathers." Frieda pulled a ribbon of black lace from her
back pocket. "I forgot the thong."

I'd noticed that. "Don't worry," I said, trying not to cringe. I'd
never gone without panties. Ever. But past experience had proven that Frieda's
thongs weren't much different than going commando and, frankly, I didn't want
to try and get into the pants again. If the witches were ready, so was I.