NINETEEN
Jo stood and turned toward the fire, keeping her back to him. Time for bed?
After her shower, she’d tested her ghosting, and yes, she could possess him, even in his super lair. If he tried to force himself on her, she had a place she could hide.
Inside him.
He’d been a world away from her previous shells. She’d sensed his power from their first meeting, but inside him, she’d been cocooned by his strength. She’d even perceived his warmth. His heartbeat had lulled her—
Was he removing his boots behind her? He was stripping!
Don’t turn around, don’t turn around. “What are the other ways you’ll make me talk?”
“They involve sexual torture.” His voice had grown huskier.
Huh? “Are you going to use whips and chains on me?”
“Only if I think you’d like that.” He was so matter-of-fact, as if her participation were a foregone conclusion. “More generally, I’ll use orgasm denial.”
Just as he’d done when manipulating that nymph. Once the blonde had agreed to do his bidding, he’d rewarded her with orgasms. Good girls get rewards?
“Until you give me information about Nïx, I’ll edge you for hours, for days even, if that’s what it takes.”
She frowned at the flames. He said that like it was a bad thing? Before last night, her hookups had always ended with her instructing her partner how to get her off, him failing, and her saying, “Oh, for fuck’s sake” and then doing it herself.
Taken all together, her sex life totaled about forty minutes, less than an episode of Walking Dead.
Three guys. Seven times. Afterward, she’d always wished she’d watched TV instead. A year or so ago she’d quit altogether.
Edging would mean Rune actually got her to edge. For hours.
And every second she was with him meant he wasn’t out hunting, wasn’t accidentally shooting innocent Valkyrie acquaintances.
Where do I sign? If she neared the brink, she could seduce him to finish her. She might not have tons of experience, but her shells had, and she watched people going at it all the time. If she factored in his thrilling reaction to her bite, Jo figured she could throw him for a loop.
The way she saw it, they were basically about to fight each other, scrapping for the upper hand—except it’d feel good.
She was amped! Her only worry was that Rune wouldn’t hold out long enough to make it interesting.
“Ah, your heart beats faster, female. You’re right to fear this. Your secrets’ lives are about to end.”
God, his voice. Husky but rumbling. Her breaths shallowed. Don’t look. . . .
Naturally she did. When had she ever not looked?
He stood beside the bed, unbuttoning his shirt. In the courtyard, she’d seen his mind-blowing ass and a side view of his dick. After her hook-up with him, he’d pulled up his pants so fast she’d gotten only a glimpse of the full package. But she’d never seen his chest.
His shirt gaped open, revealing tattooed runes. One circled his navel, another stretching across his collar bone. As her gaze swept over his chest and rigid pecs, her nipples stiffened, straining against the material of her robe.
In the firelight, his skin was tan, except for a few lighter-colored scars over his chest and abs. Those marks—taken together with his tattoos—just made him look like more of a badass.
His jeans were low-slung, revealing the trail of black hair leading down from his navel.
“My heart’s beating faster because I’m ready to get busy,” she said, removing her necklace and setting it on the table. The only thing she could tell him about Nïx was that she couldn’t tell him anything about Nïx. Yet Jo liked all the focus on the Valkyrie and not Thad. She’d keep it that way. “But if you want to keep talking instead of doing?”
Surprise crossed his expression. “And of course I’ll deny you my blood.”
Oh. Not so good. If anything else were at stake, she’d sing like a canary for his blood.
But more was at stake.
She would be winning tonight. And when she did, maybe she could score her freedom as well. If she could just get him to accept a wager. . . .
“Come to bed, Josephine. We’re both adults. We both know what’s about to happen. I haven’t even nicked my skin.” When he shrugged from his shirt, his torso flexed in a drool-worthy display, every sinew contracting. His shoulders were broad, his arms long and strong—
Her eyes widened at his right arm. A tattooed sleeve of intertwined runes covered his skin from his shoulder to his wrist.
Red hot, Rune. Red. Hot. His generous biceps bunched when he tossed the shirt away. As his dick hardened, his jeans forced his erection to grow toward the side; it stretched to his hip.
He knew the effect he was having on her, and his lips curved into that slanted half grin/half smirk, the diabolically sexy one that made her pant—the one that said, I’m about to do filthy things to every inch of you.
Just to stoke her need, he daubed the tip of his tongue to the corner of his mouth. That tiny movement made her thoughts seize on his mouth—which he’d no doubt intended.
What would he do with that tongue? Those lips? Would he give her a blood kiss?
His eyes darkened to the deepest magenta as he raked his gaze over her body, as if plotting all the places he was about to sample.
She was getting a taste of the smoldering sensuality of his fey half. Jo like. She found herself grinning back.
Before she got too caught up in things, she should pitch her wager. “You wanna make a bet?”
“About what, dove?” He started on the bulging fly of his jeans.
“You’re going to try to get answers from me. And I’m going to resist you. We should wager who’ll win.”
“I have thousands of years of experience with this. And no one has ever resisted me—even when I had one hand tied behind my back. Now? There’s no chance of it.”
“So you’ve been a sexual torturer for thousands of years?”
“Aside from an assassin, I am also a secrets master. Often I acquire them through my own brand of interrogation. Face it, female, your ass is mine.”
“If you’re so certain, promise you’ll let me go if you lose.” Then she could return to find Thad. To start her new job of watching over him.
“What will you give me when I win, other than all your secrets?”
To protect the one she loved, she would withstand this guy. If she failed, then would anything else really matter? “Whatever you want.”
The dark fey was obviously liking that prospect. The magenta of his irises began to bleed out over the whites of his eyes. “That’s a far-reaching offer. You have no idea what acts I’d commit upon your body. . . .”
His words should’ve intimidated Josephine; she leaned in closer with interest. “What’s to stop you from doing them now?”
“I’ve never forced a female in my life. I’ve never needed to. I wouldn’t start with you.”
She raised her chin. “Do you take the bet or not?”
“Oh, I’ll take it.”
“How can I be sure you won’t back out?”
“We’ll vow to the Lore, of course.” As every immortal in the realms did.
“Yeah, of course,” she hastily said.
Her flashes of ignorance about the most basic things puzzled him. Perhaps she aligned with the Forbearers, an army of male vampires created from mortals. They were a soldiering mass of cluelessness about the Lore. Though she wasn’t a turned human, she might’ve been raised among them.
She flicked a hand at him. “You go first.”
“Very well. I vow to the Lore to release you from my imprisonment should you withhold your secrets.” His defeat was a ridiculous notion, but he played along.
“Right. I vow to the Lore to let you do whatever you want to me if you get my secrets.”
Whatever I want. His cock pulsed with anticipation. What would he begin with? How could he decide? The starved man presented with a bounty . . .
“Oh, and one other thing.”
“Hmm?” His eyes leisurely devoured her.
“We can’t have sex.”
He snapped his gaze to hers. “Repeat yourself.”
“I can’t do it tonight.”
Not to be inside her? He was about to shut this down, but curiosity got the better of him. “Why not?”
“I’ll only have sex in an exclusive relationship. You’re as inclusive as a guy can be. And I don’t want you to knock me up.”
“A vampire female is only fertile if she’s been eating food for some time. Have you been?”
She glanced away. No denial? Hadn’t she invited him for coffee? She lived in the mortal world, could have been eating to blend with humans.
He swallowed. Her body might be ready for seed. Inner shake. “In any event, I have a demon seal. I can’t ejaculate inside you unless you’re my mate. Which is impossible.”
He knew his crossbreed species had been forsaken by fate. But if a creature like him miraculously had a mate, and if Josephine was miraculously that one female, nothing could be more disastrous than claiming her.
His semen had been awaiting release for seven thousand years, its potency—and poison—strengthening with age, just as the rest of his body had. One of two things would happen if he released it.
She’d withstand his most concentrated poison and become pregnant.
Or his semen would prove so deadly, she’d perish with him still inside her.
But Josephine wasn’t his. So this conjecture was moot.
She faced him again. “Define mate.”
“Define one of the most universal concepts in the Lore?”
“Define a demon mate. Might be different from a vampire’s.” She had a point.
“It’s the sole female, out of any time or any world, a demon male is most compatible with. Destiny would pair her with him, then bond them eternally. But again, I’m only half demon.”
“Eternally.” Her eyes glimmered, as if she liked the sound of that. “So you figure out a woman is yours because you can come in her?”
“A demon would have some indication before the actual claiming. He would’ve reacted fiercely to a specific female. He would know there’s a good chance of burning away his seal. Still, most demons do try out many, many different females. It’s a process known as attempting.”
“Ah, so you’ve been out attempting nymphs.”
“No, I don’t believe dark fey get mates. We’re anomalies, outside the reach of fate.”
That challenging aspect was back in her expression. “Still, I want to be one hundred percent extra careful.”
His fists clenched as the demon in him flared. “Extra careful?” Because carrying his offspring would be such a catastrophe? Did she think she was too good for him?
“Is sex all you’ve got in your playbook?” she asked. “There are lots of other things we can do to each other.”
The rich promise of lots of other things placated his demon. “Then we’re in agreement.”
She grinned. “Awesome.”
Awesome?
She dashed to the bed, leaping atop it to sprawl on her back. “Let’s get to the Q and A.”