Chapter 12

MAL GASPED when Jory lunged toward him the moment they were back in his apartment, kissing him aggressively. No energy flowed between them this time, and he wasn’t quite sure what to make of that. But Jory was warm, willing, and grinding up against him. He wanted to reassure Jory he didn’t have to hold back, didn’t have to worry about hurting him. If Mal managed to kill Eugene Barnett, he wouldn’t need the rest of his strength to sustain him anyway.

“I need to talk to you about something,” he tried, gently pushing Jory away.

“Can’t it wait? Tomorrow… might suck. Neal’s right, we should enjoy the time we’ve got.”

“You won’t get any argument from me about that.”

Jory looked into his eyes, his expression serious. He shoved Mal toward the futon, and Mal couldn’t resist. His knees struck the edge of the futon and he fell backward, watching Jory intently.

“Then we can talk after,” Jory said, maneuvering them until he was straddling Mal’s hips. Mal lifted him up and moved them both toward the wall, where he sat with Jory in his lap, his face so close to Mal’s that he could feel Jory’s heavy breathing.

“After,” he agreed.

Jory moved away, running his hands over Mal’s arms and watching him. Everywhere their skin touched, the fire of Jory’s touch sparked against his skin. “I’m tired of worrying. I want to forget about everything else for a few hours.”

Mal gasped and shuddered as Jory’s power brushed against his spirit, his half-erect cock growing impossibly hard beneath Jory’s weight. The rush of energy shot straight to his groin. Mal gasped and bucked up against him, grabbing Jory’s thighs for more friction. “I can feel you. It’s like you’re inside of me, but so much more. Please don’t stop.”

Jory rolled his hips, then tugged at Mal’s shirt. Mal slipped out of it to give him more access to his skin. With his eyes closed, Jory kept trailing his fingers over Mal’s chest, then his shoulders.

“I can see every part of you,” he said, smiling. “Your human shape is sort of floating on the surface. That’s all I bothered to see the first time. But your hellhound forms are all shimmering in the background. It makes your entire spirit so bright, just one blinding core of fire.”

Mal wanted—no, absolutely needed—more. He pulled Jory down to claim his mouth in a fierce, possessive kiss. Mal gripped his hips tighter, trying to hold Jory flush against him. As Jory pulled away, Mal leaned forward, chasing his lips.

“Glad I’m not the only one who’s eager,” Jory said, slipping his fingers beneath Mal’s waistband.

“I want to feel you,” Mal said, feeling Jory’s lips against his as he spoke. “I want you to fuck me.”

Jory nodded and tugged at the buttons of Mal’s jeans, barely inching his zipper down. Mal let his head lean against the wall, his breathing already ragged.

“I need you,” he whispered. When Jory nodded, Mal wrapped one arm around his waist and hoisted him into the air, spinning them both so he could pin Jory against the mattress. He sat on his knees, shaking, and grinned. “We can go slow next time,” he promised.

“Whatever you want,” Jory replied.

Mal felt so alive when Jory touched him, so perfect, that he wanted to experience everything Jory would share with him. He dove off the futon, digging through the things that had fallen to the floor until he found the bottle of lube again. “Get out of those pants,” he growled, discarding the rest of his own clothes as quickly as he could. Once Jory was naked, Mal climbed onto him, stroked him slowly, and then squirted a bit of lube onto his fingertips.

With his eyes glazed and trained on Jory’s face, he reached his hand back, sinking his fingers inside as quickly as he dared.

Jory opened his mouth, his lips forming a silent O. He pushed himself up on his elbows and watched as Mal fingered himself, his panting breath coming in time with each shallow movement. “I want to do that,” Jory said, sitting up to meet him.

Mal laughed and moved his hand aside. “I wouldn’t dream of stopping you.”

Jory traced the length of Mal’s cock, playing with the energy flowing just beneath Mal’s skin, tickling and burning him at the same time. Every tiny variation sent a shudder ripping through Mal’s body. Using his fingertips, Jory pushed and pulled at the flow, finally swirling his index finger over the head of Mal’s cock. That was his undoing.

Mal growled as he came, bending over Jory’s shoulder and taking the skin at the crook of Jory’s neck between his teeth to keep himself from screaming as he rode out his orgasm. After he let go, panting, he smirked. “Do you have any idea how unfair that is?”

“I’m sorry, I got distracted. I was going to work my way back here,” Jory said, dragging his fingertips down over Mal’s sac to his slightly stretched hole. Mal felt Jory’s power relax a little before he slipped one finger inside of Mal’s lube-soaked hole. “Does it feel good?”

Mal squeezed his eyes shut and laughed, burying his face against Jory’s neck. “It feels fucking amazing, but I’m jealous. I wish I could make you come like that.”

“Watching you is fun all by itself,” Jory admitted, reaching deeper into Mal’s body. It didn’t take him long to find his prostate, nearly making him scream again. But then he seemed to hesitate. “You sure you’re up for this?”

Mal rocked his hips against Jory’s finger. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Well,” Jory said, shrugging, “you’ve got that big alpha male thing going, and I’m….”

Mal laughed. “Alpha male? With hellhounds, that’s not a thing. I didn’t call the leader of my clan Alpha. Just Dad.”

“But what about everybody else?”

“My cousins call him Uncle Malek,” he explained. “Everybody else left off the uncle bit.”

“Huh. So much for the like werewolves except with the ability to light your eyes on fire theory. Good to know.”

“Even if I was a total top, I’d want to feel you inside me. I want you every way possible.” Mal closed his eyes and arched his body, rocking his hips to urge Jory to continue. “More?”

Jory seemed only too happy to oblige, watching hungrily as Mal fucked himself on his fingers. Regardless of the role he was planning to play, he was never very good at being patient. When he couldn’t encourage Jory’s fingers to go deeper, he moved Jory’s hand aside, shoved him down onto the mattress, and positioned himself over Jory’s cock.

He braced himself as Jory’s cock filled him. The familiar, electrifying tingle amplified the tight heat wrapped around him. Jory grabbed his legs, driving himself up into Mal’s body—deep and hot and perfect.

Mal lowered himself and shifted his weight, grinding his hips back and forth, his cock, hard again already, slapping against his stomach with each movement. Jory eased both hands around Mal’s shaft, stroking him in time with the rhythm Mal set.

All too quickly, he lost himself to the sensations coursing through him. For a single, blinding moment, he felt Jory let go, entwining around him so completely that it was hard for him to sense where he ended and Jory began.

Mal kept moving as Jory came deep inside of him, the sensation driving him over the edge and undoing him completely. The shock waves that echoed through his body didn’t seem to stop at his own skin. He arched up, spurting cum over Jory’s knuckles as the wave of energy rocked through them both.

He couldn’t say how long it took for the world to come into focus. He was vaguely aware of the fact that Jory was in his arms and that they were both wet and sticky. Jory grabbed a washcloth and cleaned Mal up.

Mal grumbled, grabbed the washcloth, and made quick work of wiping himself off, then tugged Jory down beside him. “Mine,” Mal announced, closing his eyes.

“Oh, I could get used to that.”

When they woke again, the sun had set. Neither said a word as they turned toward each other, learning every inch of each other’s bodies in the dark. Another slow round of sex followed, Mal taking Jory from behind and dragging out each shallow thrust until Jory was shaking beneath him. When he came again, they were both too dazed to move. He was content to go back to sleep and deal with the mess, and the world, later.

He wasn’t sure what time the sun rose, but he was happy to wake Jory up by nipping at his collarbone. “You’ve already packed your stuff, haven’t you?”

“I’ve been ready to leave since Neal first told me I should move on,” Jory muttered, squirming closer. “You’re definitely nicer to wake up to than an alarm clock.”

A quiet dread seeped into his chest. He’d been only too happy to forget the cryptic incubus lord’s not-so-veiled comments from the previous night. “Neal warned you to leave before you ever agreed to go out with me, didn’t he?” He’d warned Jory about Mal.

Jory poked him. “Stop it. Unless we’re about to be attacked, stop worrying.”

“I wasn’t worrying,” he lied.

“I can feel it.”

Mal ignored that. He got up to use the bathroom and checked the time on his phone. It was too early to be awake, too early to leave, but he had three texts from Corbin already. The first was the name of a hotel just a few blocks away, along with a room number. The second was a warning that Eugene was sending Luhmann to take Jory, since the demon he’d summoned couldn’t enter the building. The final message warned that Luhmann had been driven completely mad, that the only way to protect Jory was to kill Luhmann on sight.

With a defeated sigh, he slipped back into bed and held Jory closer for a bit, thinking about the wry smile he’d gotten when he’d given Jory something as simple as a cookbook. He still had the one Jory had gotten as a teenager hidden in the trunk of his car. Maybe he’d come into Jory’s life for shitty reasons, but at least taking out Eugene and keeping Jory safe might begin to make up for it. If he failed, though, he’d be leaving Jory alone and under the protection of an alcoholic incubus and a half-dead dragon. Mal couldn’t give him much, but he could give Jory a way out and that one piece of his past to hold on to.

“I didn’t bring anything upstairs with me,” Mal hedged, chuckling. “I’m going to run down to my car really quick, grab Louise a snack, and bring up some clothes.”

“Is she really okay in the car?” Jory asked. “She was fine up here before.”

“Trust me, she’d be mortified sleeping in here again,” Mal insisted. “And since your friend Neal seemed content to pass out next to the back steps, she has company.”

“Yeah, I suppose.”

Mal nodded, the dread refusing to fade. After he’d taken a leak and pulled on yesterday’s clothes, he wandered downstairs, only half-aware of the world around him. Neal was nowhere to be found, but the dragon who called himself Keygan was perched on the edge of a windowsill, holding on to the thin brick lip with the claws on his feet. Mal stared at him for a moment, but all he had to do was check Louise’s state of mind to know that the dragon hadn’t moved throughout the night. He grabbed Jory’s cookbook from the trunk while Louise, once again smelling suspiciously of cheeseburgers, stretched and looked at him affectionately.

When he glanced up again, the dragon was gone.

“Good riddance,” he muttered.

Even looking at Jory’s cookbook was difficult. Jory had so little, emotionally and physically. Mal never could have known how much The Professional Pastry Chef meant to him. He’d have taken it anyway, if he’d known. Hell, he’d have gone back for it at this point, just to make Jory smile.

He ran his fingers over the cover of his current sketchbook, thinking about the portraits of Jory he hadn’t finished yet. He wished he could steal a little bit more time, just to finish them. He tossed Louise’s dress aside and set the cookbook in the middle of the driver’s seat.

When he turned around to give Louise her instructions, he found Neal less than three feet from him.

“What do you want?”

Neal glared at him and crossed his arms. “You’ve backed yourself into a corner. I know that the body that ghoul was wearing was taken away within an hour of you ripping its head off. Everything that was with the body went with him. You didn’t find his ID, you already knew who he was. Which means the human who hired you to find Jory is the same sorcerer who summoned Samael.”

A bolt of fear shot through him, but he didn’t move. He knew the moment he’d said he’d been able to ID the ghoul’s host that Neal, at least, had picked up on the lie. Neal’s dedication to Jory was obvious. He would kill him if Mal didn’t follow through with his promise.

“Does it matter? I’m going to kill him like I said I would.”

“You’ll die.”

Neal might be right. He’d agreed to a contract with Barnett too. “Probably, yeah.”

Neal nodded once.

“Why do you care so much about what happens to him?” Mal asked.

“As far as I know, that kid is all that’s left of someone who was important to me,” Neal said quietly.

“Asmodeus.”

“Yeah. I’d have stayed until the end. He’d ruled our home for ages, but in the last few years, something weakened him. Broke him. With me by his side, he was still safe. But without me, it was just a matter of time before someone took him out. And instead of letting me stay to protect him, he sent me here. He sent me to earth, specifically to some shitty little corner of the world where it’s freezing for nine months out of the year and the world is covered in nothing but cornfields. He said it was important, but he never told me why.”

“You think he sent you to protect Jory?”

“I know he did. Jory’s his.”

“His? Jory is one of Asmodeus’s cambion?” Mal didn’t doubt it for a moment. The strength Jory radiated had to come from somewhere, and there was no way his power had come from a fourth- or fifth-generation hybrid. “You know, so what? A lot of you guys sire kids with humans. Even Asmodeus himself was supposedly half-human. There are more cambion on earth than fae, at this point.”

Neal cocked his head to the side. “Two things…. First, Asmodeus was half-human, that’s true. But there’s a significant difference between a half-human child sired by one of the elder gods and one sired by a demon lord. And second, I never said that Jory was half-human.”

Mal whipped his head up, meeting Neal’s gaze directly. “Jory’s…. Who are you?”

“An exile, the same as you.”

“I very much doubt that.”

“You’re probably right. I can’t imagine anyone cares enough about killing you to spend decades trying to drag you back to Hel so they can make a spectacle of your execution. But I’m stuck here just like you. I’m going to make sure you don’t run away from this. You can either do what you promised and accept whatever doom you agreed to in that contract, or you can deal with me. I don’t like to see anyone die, but I will drag you into the ether, strip you of every drop of power you’ve got, and then abandon you there until the universe crumbles around you if you back out.”

“Stupid threats aside, I’m not running. The old man who’s after Jory is responsible for all of this. His son told me where to find him, so I’m heading there.”

“You trust the son?”

“I trust him to put his interests over his father’s life, yeah.” He turned to Louise and sighed. Her relaxed façade had vanished. “Make sure Jory gets these?” he asked, holding up his keys. “Tell him the car’s his, that he should leave while he can.”

Louise whined.

“And tell him I’m sorry.”