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My house had several bedrooms, none of which I used for sleeping. The beds in them just kept up appearances, because who the hell didn’t put a bed in their house? The only thing I used them for was fucking, but why fuck on a bed when there was literallyeverywhereelse? Bed-fucking was unimaginative, but I digress.
I decided to put her in the master suite, give her something nice to wake up to.
But she was bloody and covered in mud. It didn’t seem right to lay her on clean sheets like that. I laid her in the tub first and ran the hot water. She stirred, but only a little, her eyes fluttering when the water touched her. Damn, she really was exhausted. I’d thought she’d wake up and do the washing herself, but no luck there.
Well. Fuck. It wasn’t my style to mess around with unconscious humans; it went against my principles. There was no fun to be had if they didn’t even know what was happening, and sneaking to get a bit of pleasure was pathetic. But it wasn’t about that. I wasn’t going to put her to bed muddy. There was too much risk of those cuts getting infected, and losing a human to infection was an amateur mistake.
I rinsed her off, using the detachable shower head to get the mud off her skin and out of her hair. I went slow, because disturbing her sleep just felt rude at this point. As I ran the water over her body, I got to take in every little detail of the art inked into her skin. A gray wolf’s head was centered proudly on her chest, surrounded by pine boughs, as if it were peering out from the forest. There were white flowers between the boughs, a touch of softness I wouldn’t have expected.
They covered her old scars, but couldn’t entirely hide them. Whoever had inflicted them on her — Kent Hadleigh, I could only assume — had been brutally reckless with their blade. They’d been rough, creating jagged scars. She’d likely been struggling against them, thrashing, causing the knife to slip.
It made me instantly, irrationally furious. I had to pause to force my blinding rage to calm. Just the thought of someone else holding her down, hurting her against her will, taking her suffering when they had no fucking right to it…
Fucking Lucifer, it enraged me. No wonder her initial reaction to seeing the knife had been such terror. I wasn’t used to experiencing such a visceral reaction to it; Earth was rampant with violent, cruel, unfair things, and I hardly blinked an eye at them. But when it came to her, when it came tomylittle wolf, it was different. I’d taken care with the knife, so the scars I’d given her would be slim, working within the lines of the art she already had.
They weren’t meant to mar her flesh, they were meant to honor it. The sight of my sigil etched into her skin made my cock hard again, a dangerous combination with my anger. I was going to end up breaking something if I wasn’t careful. I needed to go for a run. I needed to catch my breathawayfrom her.
Why the hell did she have me so wound up?
I toweled her off and laid her in bed. She stirred as her head settled on the pillow, but she only exhaled softly and turned onto her side, clutching the blankets close to her chin. Her skin was so soft, it was like silk under my fingers. And when I trailed my hand over her shoulder, goose bumps blossomed across her skin. I sat back, lounging in the plush chair tucked in the corner beneath the window.
I wanted to keep touching her. I wanted to explore every inch, take my time, follow the lines of every scar, and count the freckles across her back. I longed to feel that soft, warm, mortal skin under my hands.
But I was trying to be good, I was trying to bepolite. Self-control was a torturously difficult exercise.
Her lips moved with silent words in her sleep, and my claws sunk into the chair’s fabric. Those filthy lips around my cock, hungry and eager — I bit my knuckles hard enough to make myself bleed. My cock was aching, straining against the confines of my jeans.No touching, Zane. No more fucking touching.
I left her alone, took her clothes downstairs and put them in the wash — at least the pieces that were still wearable. I would’ve preferred she stay naked, but she wouldn’t go for that.
I had to get my head straight before she awoke.
14
The next thing I knew, I was opening my eyes in an unfamiliar room, in an unfamiliar bed.
I lay there and blinked in utter confusion for several minutes. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept — or fallen unconscious — and not awoken in a cold sweat from nightmares. I hadn’t dreamed at all, at least not that I could remember. My body was sore, every muscle aching, and there was a lingering sting on my chest.
Thesting. That was what brought it back to me: I’d done the unthinkable. I’d sold my soul to a demon, in exchange for mass murder. I was going to kill Kent Hadleigh and his cult, and I had a demon to help me do it.
A sadistic madman of a demon who laughed when he was stabbed and gave orgasms like a serial killer murdering his latest victim — hard, fast, and brutal, with passionately violent glee.
I sat up slowly, letting the covers fall from my chest. I was shockingly clean, my hair still slightly damp. I couldn’t remember showering, so did that mean…
Did that mean the demon that had chased me through the woods hadbathedme?
The thought made me instantly squirm. It was hard to believe he’d bothered to clean me up. He’d even taken the time to put me in bed and tuck me under the covers. It seemed too nice, toocaring. Kindness felt like a trap, and it made me instantly suspicious.
I didn’t need to be taken care of; I’d made that clear to him back in the forest. He’d ignored me, of course, but if he’d left me alone like I’d told him to, I would have managed fine on my own. A few minutes of resting my eyes, and I would have been more than capable of walking home.
I sighed heavily, wincing as I tried to run my hand through my tangled hair. I was lying to myself. My pride was berating me for it, but I’d needed Zane’s help back there in the woods. I wouldn’t have made it to safety without him.
The room I was in was spacious, with a few cushioned chairs, a television, and a large dark trunk at the foot of the bed. Gray stone adorned the bathroom at the far side of the room, and curtains were drawn across floor-to-ceiling windows to my left. I couldn’t hear any rain, but the light spilling through was pale and muted.
Where the hell was my gun?
I slipped out of bed, the wooden floor cool beneath my feet. I went into the bathroom, the large mirror over the bronze basin sink giving me a full view of my naked body. It was a body covered in scars, burns, and art; a body I’d often hated and rarely loved. After the Libiri had cut me, the ragged wounds had swollen and scabbed over before they slowly healed to pale scars. I hadn’t been able to bear looking in the mirror and seeing them, a constant reminder of the horror, the pain, and the agony that had come after. The agony of not being believed, of being treated like a troubled child making wild accusations.
I’d eventually covered them with tattoos. At least then, I could look in the mirror and see the art I’d chosen.
