Unbound (3 page)

Chapter 5

A loud shriek and a flash of movement caught Addie’s eye. She spun and stared at the rocky hillside, but whatever she’d seen was gone. “What was that?”

“I think it was Jett. It was definitely a demon.” Locan pointed to a pile of boulders on the hillside. “There. In the shadows. I felt it watching us, but it’s gone.”

“Earthside?”

“I think so. Do you want to follow?”

Addie turned and cocked her eyebrow. “Can we find where he went?”

“If we hurry. Demons leave a trail that hunters can follow, fulcrums not so well, but it doesn’t last long.” He reached for Addie’s hand.

She grabbed his. “Find him.”

He nodded. Before she had time to prepare, they were standing in a dark forest with the night sounds of a city all around. Pine and cedar scented the air, and the slight tang of salt water. “Are we in a park?”

“The Presidio, I think. In San Francisco.” The section of land south of the Golden Gate Bridge had served as army headquarters for three nations over its two hundred plus years. Now it was a favorite hunting ground for demons for some bizarre reason. Locan knelt and touched his fingers to the thick grass. Raised his hand and sniffed. “He’s been here. Shit, Addie. He still smells a little like Jett, but the demon stench is getting stronger. We have to hurry. C’mon.”

They ran through the thick shrubbery and heavy overgrowth, then burst out into a wide clearing that Addie recognized as a golf course. The two of them paused in deep shadows at the edge of the neatly manicured lawn. Addie raised her head and sniffed. The scent of demon must be strong for her to pick it up, but try as she might, she couldn’t recognize Jett beneath the stench. She reached for Locan and clasped his hand. “Is that him? I smell demon.”

“I think so. If not that one, another nearby. I can still smell Jett’s scent, but it’s very faint.” He glanced down at Addie. “Can you become an owl? If you shift, you could cover more ground. Your night vision would be a lot better. But be careful.”

Curious, she paused before shifting. “Why? What’s the danger?”

He shrugged. “Demons eat owls. They eat anything they can catch.”

Great.
“I’ll try and remember that, okay?” Grumbling, Addie looked at a snag on a dead eucalyptus tree and thought
owl.
Suddenly she was clinging to the branch, flapping big wings to keep her balance. Looking down, she saw Locan staring at her with a bemused expression on his face. After all the trouble she’d had figuring out the mechanics of shifting, it probably surprised him to see her do it as smoothly as she had.

It helped when there was a reason to shift. She seemed to need the motivation.
Which direction do you think he’s gone?

West, toward the ocean. That’s where the scent trail leads. I’ll go on foot; you stay ahead of me. Let me know if you see anything at all.

Addie launched herself from the branch, forcing her wings down with a powerful thrust to gain altitude, but she quickly realized she’d taken on the form of a great horned owl and her wings were perfect for gliding on the strong breeze coming off the Pacific. Her eyesight was amazing, her hearing even better. She recognized the sounds of tiny creatures rustling in the grass, caught the high-pitched squeak of bats in the darkness around her. Her wings stretched out on either side, holding her aloft as she coasted on the night wind while her big head twisted this way and that, scoping out the tree-studded land below.

A sudden movement caught her eye and she circled for a better look. A demon, just below her, lumbering through the brush on a meandering course that took it toward the ocean. She spotted Locan about fifty yards back, trotting along at a pace that would put him on the demon in a matter of seconds.
You’re coming up on a big one, ahead and slightly to your left. I can’t tell if it’s Jett or not.

Thanks. I can hear him, but the scent’s wrong. Can you get a better look?

Will do.
She made a tight circle that brought her in low and fast. Focused on the demon she’d been following, Addie almost missed the flash of movement off to the side. Another demon, stalking the first one, slipping along through the brush as if he hunted. Black scales, an ugly mug and sharp plates down his spine. And he definitely had a tail.

Addie knew this one. Intimately.

I see Jett. He seems to be hunting the other demon. Why would he do that?

Demons don’t play well together. I’ve told you that. He’s probably hungry.

Be careful, Locan. You’re almost on him. I’m surprised Jett doesn’t hear you.
She found a limb overhead where she could observe both demons just as Locan burst out of the brush with his sword drawn. Addie’s heart thudded in her chest—Locan was just one hunter and Jett’s behavior couldn’t be predicted.

The first demon spun about slowly, and damn but it was ugly. Huge horns sprouted from its head and the face was all shoved flat with ugly, dark-stained tusks curling up from his lower jaw. Jett held back, obviously confused by Locan’s presence. Addie considered shifting, but Locan looked like he could handle the demon he’d targeted.

As long as Jett stayed out of his way.

The demon bent low and curled his arms out, taking a fighter’s stance. From the scars that marred its green scaled hide, the creature had obviously fought before. It stared at Locan, snarling, its big hands clenching and then opening wide to display foot-long talons.

Locan glanced up.
Where’s Jett?

Just to your left. He’s staying back, behind that cedar.

Let me know if he looks like he might attack.

I will. Be careful, Locan. The second you need me, I’m there.

Not yet. Keep an eye on Jett. He’s unpredictable at this point, but he’s still going to have more brains than your average demon. He was originally chosen for the change because of his intelligence.

Without warning, the beast Locan faced suddenly lunged at him. Locan ducked and rolled to one side, but the move brought him up against the cedar where Jett was hiding. Jett shuffled closer, but Locan focused on his prey—he spun away without seeing Jett, and charged the green demon.

Talons raked the air just above Locan’s head. Too close. He spun, swung his broadsword and slashed the beast across his chest, opening him wide, but his blade caught against one of the creature’s ribs. Locan stumbled. The demon shrieked and charged, head down, massive arms spread wide.

Addie launched herself off the branch, using her size and speed to distract the demon. It stopped, shook its ugly head and watched her whiz by while Locan regained his footing. She noticed that Jett had moved away from the cedar. He stood in the open, staring at the battle, and again she sensed his confusion. Did he remember? Did he know who he was?

She found a branch just out of his reach and landed. Jett stared up at her, but there wasn’t anything remotely intelligent in that hideous face. He licked his lips with a long thick tongue that curled up and over his snout. Addie shuddered. Then she jerked, turning her focus away from Jett as Locan cursed.

A third demon burst out of the bushes and headed straight for Locan. Outnumbered now, Locan slashed at the wounded demon, missed his target and dove over a fallen log to escape the rush of the newest.

Unwilling to distract Locan, Addie prepared to shift and help him when the demon that was Jett suddenly rushed forward.

Locan! Look out!

Locan leapt to his feet, but he went for the second demon.

And so did Jett. Launching himself at the newcomer, Jett slashed with those long talons and bit the demon’s throat. Rearing back, he tore through scales, bone and tendons with sharp teeth, practically beheading the beast.

Then, to Addie’s absolute disgust, he crouched down and began feeding on his still-struggling prey, tearing out huge chunks of flesh and swallowing it down. His muzzle dripped blood and his taloned hands were buried in the wounded demon’s belly. While Addie was trying her best not to throw up, Locan quickly dispatched the first demon with a powerful slash of his sword.

The demon’s head rolled away. Its body swayed on both feet for a moment longer before it toppled to the ground. Locan gave it a final glance as the remains began to smoke, shrivel and shrink into a tarry mass. Then he turned slowly and stared at the demon who had been his lover. Jett raised his bloody snout, gulped down an unidentifiable demon body part, and stared right back at Locan.

After a moment, he swallowed and let out a long low growl of warning. Then he went back to feeding, gorging himself on as much as he could before the demon was truly dead and the body decomposed into that black tarry substance Addie’d grown way too familiar with.

She wanted to weep. She wanted to go to Jett and beg him to come home, to hug Locan and keep him safe, but she sat on her branch and merely watched as Locan carefully backed away from Jett.

Follow me, Addie,
he said.
There’s nothing we can do while he’s feeding. He’s too unpredictable like this. Let’s go back. We’ll look for him in the morning, when his belly’s full and he’s sleeping it off. We can’t help him until he’s back home, anyway.

Addie shifted and joined Locan on the ground. It was only then that she realized his chest was badly slashed and he was bleeding. “What happened?”

“I moved a little too slow. C’mon. The trip home will heal me.”

She clasped his hand in hers, but Addie’s eyes were on the black demon as she and Locan dematerialized. Her eyes were on him, and he was watching them. Watching, almost as if he remembered.

* * *

He gulped down another chunk of the dying demon, careful not to damage anything truly vital. That much he knew—when on Earth, demons quickly decomposed as soon as they died. At home, he could feed at leisure. Not here. Here it was an art to eat as much as possible while the creature still lived.

He glanced once again at the spot where those two others had disappeared. Why did they interest him? He wanted nothing to do with those creatures. They hunted his kind. That much he knew. Hunted demons and sent them to the true death. There was no coming back once you’d been dispatched by a demon hunter.

But why did he know this? How did he know? He was demon. No more, no less. He took another bite, but he wasn’t paying attention and realized too late that he’d just eaten the demon’s heart. Damn. Sitting back on his haunches, he watched as the remaining flesh and bone began to steam. It quickly shriveled and turned black and gooey, and finally melted across the ground like black tar.

He rubbed one taloned hand across his distended belly. At least his belly was full. The heart had been a tasty morsel, so maybe he hadn’t made a mistake after all. He stood up and stretched. Turned his head and stared in the direction of the ocean. Then he thought better. He thought of home, closed his eyes, and opened them on the hillside above the cavern.

This place called to him. It made his heart ache and he didn’t know why, but his belly was full and there was a small place where he could hide and think about those things he didn’t understand.

Chapter 6

“Sit.” Addie placed her fingertips against Locan’s chest and gently shoved him so that his butt hit the ledge. Warm water swirled about his hips and waist while she carefully washed the blood away. Three barely healed, dark pink scars stretched from his right shoulder to his left hip, parallel cuts across his alabaster skin. The demon could so easily have gutted him, but it appeared Locan had moved far enough, fast enough, so that the creature’s talons had left nothing but deep furrows.

Overwhelmed by the fear she could have lost him even more terribly than they’d lost Jett, Addie leaned forward and kissed first one slash, then the next, and finally the bottom of the three. It disappeared beneath the water where it crossed over his hipbone.

Floating in the warm water, she wrapped her arms around Locan’s waist and rested her cheek against his belly. There was no need for words. He knew. She knew. They loved, but they missed the one who completed them. They were meant to be three.

Even so, when Locan’s cock rose high and hard against Addie’s cheek, she merely turned her head, nuzzled the solid length of him and took him in her mouth. His soft moan and the warm caress of his fingers in her short hair told her he needed this every bit as much as she.

Dipping her hand into the water between his legs, she cupped the heavy weight of his testicles in her palm. Gently rolling the hard orbs between her fingers, she turned herself free to feel. To experience this intimate joining with a man she’d grown to love more than she’d ever imagined possible. There was something almost dreamlike as she floated between his spread legs, one shoulder resting on his thigh, her arm around his waist. His skin was so fair she expected him to feel cold, as if he were carved of lifeless marble, but Locan was warm. Warm and alive and safe, and she loved him.

Just as she loved Jett, but she couldn’t think of that now. Couldn’t think of how much she loved him, how much she missed him, though he’d only been gone a few short hours. Instead, she turned her full attention on Locan. His eyes were closed, his head thrown back, the long silver strands of his hair fanning out in the mineral-laden water.

Addie tightened her lips around the ivory length of his cock, felt her cheeks hollow out as she drew on him. Her tongue followed the thick ridges of veins pulsing just beneath the skin and she tasted him, tasted the salty sweet flavors of his precum and inhaled the musky male scent that was all his.

His fingers tightened in her hair and she sensed the difference in his breathing, knew he struggled for control. “Stop,” he whispered. “Now, before it’s too late.”

“No,” she said. Then she smiled around his shaft and took him all the way, swallowing the thick length of him as he lost all control, cried out and strained against her. She kept sucking and licking, her throat muscles working around his cock as he pulsed and spasmed through his release. Water splashed against her face, his balls jerked in her grasp and his body shuddered.

She felt her own climax rising, and fought it back. This was for Locan. All for Locan, and it wasn’t until his fingers loosened their grip, until his thigh went lax beneath her shoulder and he fell back against the stone wall that she finally pulled back, slipping his softening cock from her throat until only the velvety crown remained in her mouth.

Licking him, she cleaned away the traces of semen, savoring his flavor, his scent. Nuzzling his damp groin, she finally rested her cheek against the top of his shaft and sighed. Both of them were exhausted. They needed to rest and then they had to find Jett. Addie wasn’t certain how she knew, but if they didn’t bring him back by tomorrow, she was terribly afraid it would be too late.

* * *

Locan’s heart still thundered in his chest and he felt as if he’d never get enough air in his lungs. It was okay. Better than okay. He felt replete. Practically wasted, if the truth were known, but Addie had taken him so completely he knew he’d never be the same. The two of them had never once made love alone. Always Jett had been with them, a constant presence. Jealous sometimes, maybe angry, but always loving, and as special as this time with Addie would always be to him, Locan missed his partner.

He and Jett had been together for hundreds of years, thousands, maybe, the two of them battling one another even as they fought together. Who knew how long it had been? Time had a way of passing, and he tended to think of the years in their lives as hunters only as they related to a particular fulcrum. There’d been the one who changed them, taking them from their bare existence as demons and turning them into hunters. There’d been other fulcrums over the centuries. Leah’d been with them for almost five hundred years.

And then there was Addie. She was the one who’d changed everything.

She’d certainly changed Locan. And now, if any of them were to survive, she had to change Jett. But they were running out of time.

He opened his eyes to see her smiling at him, her brown eyes sparkling, her lips parted. She needed to know the truth. After he made love to her.

* * *

“My turn,” he said, as if she hadn’t just given him the best blow job she’d ever given any man, but he was smiling and that look raised goose bumps along her arms. When he slid from the stone ledge and rested his hands beneath her butt, she let her body go limp and slowly waved her arms in the warm water, floating in front of him like some pagan sacrifice.

He dipped low in the water until only his head and shoulders were showing. Addie let her head fall back, but she was so buoyant in the mineral-laden pool that she might have been lying on a cloud. His fingers massaged her butt and he looped her legs over his shoulders. All it took was the lazy strokes of her arms to keep her nose and mouth out of the water.

Her hearing was muffled by the water and it covered her chest and belly, though her nipples poked above the surface. Nipples, legs and her sex exposed to the warm moist air, to Locan’s touch. To his mouth.

She’d never experienced such specific sensory deprivation or sensory overload in her life. His tongue found the sensitive skin of her inner thigh. She moaned, and the sound echoed in her ears, along with the whoosh of water rushing into the pool from an underground spring. She could hear her heart beating and the sound of her own breathing, but all else was muffled by the warm water lapping against her face, her breasts, across her belly.

His tongue moved in delightful circles and she forgot about everything but Locan. His nose bumped against her clit, then his lips compressed the sensitive bud and she shuddered. His left hand slipped to the center of her bottom and one finger pressed against the sensitive opening.

She held her breath, waiting for what she wanted, hoping he would press harder, but he merely stroked the ring of muscle, raising even more shivers across her skin. His tongue was doing amazing things between her legs and she tried to concentrate on each sensation, each unexpected touch.

Impossible. His right hand moved away from her bottom, trailed over the curve of her cheek and slipped inside her greedy sex. One finger, then two. He added a third, stretching her, and his tongue was still lapping at her clit, his lips occasionally suckling that sensitive bud. She felt her climax blossoming beneath his skillful touch, a slow, beautiful build of sensation. Held as she was by his hands, by the warm water, by his mouth, she let herself go.

Pleasure rippled from her toes to the top of her head. Not orgasm. No, this was something else, this sensory overload of gentle, loving touches, of lips and tongue and hands, and the comfort of warm water, warm male. Then his lips clamped down on her clit, his fingers curved forward and stroked the bundle of nerves inside her sheath and he pressed deep inside her bottom with the middle finger of his other hand.

Thank goodness she remembered not to breathe as she arched her back. Pleasure blasted through her, ripping away any barriers that might have existed between them. Opening Addie’s need to Locan, unleashing all of his fears for her. Addie’s body clenched and she wanted to scream but water flowed over her face. Then Locan was lifting her, hauling her up against his chest and holding her tight against him, where she shuddered and pulsed and wept with the power of release.

With the knowledge he’d hidden from her. How dare he?

How could he not?

Clinging to him with legs around his slim waist, her arms around his chest, she buried her face against his throat and cried.

Later. Long minutes later when she could breathe without sobbing, when her arms and legs were lax and her body sated, she kissed his throat and then his lips. Then she leaned back in his embrace just enough to see his face. Tears filled Locan’s eyes, but he didn’t speak.

“We have to save him,” she said, feeling the sense of resolve flowing through her, giving her strength. “I don’t want him to be a demon for another hunter to kill. Nor you, either. Besides that, I’m not ready to die.”

He nodded. “I couldn’t say . . .”

Shaking her head, she said, “It’s okay. I know why you didn’t say anything, but that doesn’t change what is. I love you, but I love Jett every bit as much. No matter what the risk, we have to find him. Then it’s up to me to change him.”

Locan nodded. “I’ll help. However I can, whatever it takes, I will do my best to keep you safe, but we need to bring him back or it’s over for all of us.”

“That’s not going to happen.” She unlocked her heels where they rested against his butt and let her legs slide to the floor of the pool. “Let’s get something to eat, and then we need to get moving.”

“We’ll have to bring him back here. The change can only be done in this dimension.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do.” She turned away and waded across the pool, then climbed out and grabbed a towel. “I should be exhausted, but I’m not.” She shook her head. “Why is that?”

“Would you believe it’s the sex?”

She laughed. How could that be, she wondered, when there really wasn’t anything to laugh about, but what good would it do to let her sadness have full rein? “If you say so.” She flashed him a bright grin and realized that his teasing gave her hope. No reason why, except she’d rather be hopeful than not.

She’d rather believe she and Locan would be able to save Jett, and if laughter and good sex helped, then so be it.