The Demon's Bargain (Demons Unleashed Erotic Novellas) (2 page)

Something dark and predatory flared in the black depths of his gaze. “And what would I do with her?”

The sibilant hiss edged along her nerve endings like little lightning bolts. His words struck fear into her heart, but she stood strong.

Her lying, cheating worm of a husband simpered. “Anything you desire, my Lord.”

“Really?” He brought the hand he’d touched her clitoris with to his nose, inhaled. “Anything?”

Amara thought of the degradation she had endured since her marriage. Her papa would have killed her himself if he’d known what the “protection” of her husband had done for her.

Never trust a man who trades a woman for a gambling payoff.

Amara choked down a bitter laugh. Since she’d come under the protection of Edward’s clan, she’d been nothing but payment for his debts.

Damn him to hell.

“Why have you not spoken up for yourself?” the Demon wondered aloud. “Perhaps I misunderstood your lack of passion before. Maybe you are merely a shell.”

“Everyone knows you don’t engage with a Demon.” She shot her husband a scornful glare.

Stupid Edward didn’t even have the sense to flush.

“Ah, a most intelligent response.” The Demon smiled lazily at her, his teeth white and gleaming in the dark beauty of his face. He recognized her intelligence when her husband had not. The bleak thought simmered even as she kept her face impassive. Edward was a an even bigger fool than she’d realized if he thought to cheat this Demon.

“So you agree?” Her traitorous husband practically cackled, his body vibrating with his delight.

“We must come to terms.” The Demon held out his hand to her, palm up as if in supplication. For a moment, she stared at his long, lean fingers, then shifted her gaze to his soulless eyes. The devil lurked beneath that sinful gaze. She didn’t want to touch him. And he knew it.

Why would the Demon agree to this farce?

“I accept.” Edward, the fool, didn’t even wait to hear the terms.

What in the hell did the Demon have planned for her? It didn’t matter. She wouldn’t let it matter. She’d get through this. But she needed to know.

“What are the terms?” Her voice cracked, as if she’d been too long without water.

He beckoned with his fingers, and she reluctantly placed her hand in his rough palm. His skin scorched hers, sizzling when he twined their fingers together.

The Demon tugged her closer and twisted until she fell into his lap. He wrapped his arm around her stomach, trapping her. One thigh came between hers to spread her legs and force her butt against the semi-hard length of his cock.

Revulsion spread through her like the wildfires that had destroyed cities after the giant quake. For a single moment, she allowed her shame to bubble and fester, then she shoved it back down where no one could see and she wouldn’t feel anything.

“One night.” His teeth bit the curve where her neck met her shoulder.

She held still enduring the sharp pain. One night. She could endure one night of anything. Amara relaxed slightly as the terms of her sentence became clear. She was instantly aware of the hard contours of his body, thighs as big as tree trunks under her buttocks and his chest a granite slab at her back.

Then his tongue came out in one long lazy lick up the side of her neck, rough and hot against her frozen flesh, and curled around her earlobe. She wanted to hunch in loathing but she remained still, determined not to show her shame. “Of pleasure.”

Never her pleasure. But she could endure one night of anything.

Edward rubbed his palms together. “Done.”

“Ah, but I’m not finished.”

 Gods, she should have known there would be more to it than that.

“Yes. Yes.” Edward bounced on his toes, his impatience to be gone a physical presence.

The Demon slid his hand back into the slutty top her husband insisted she wear. He wrapped his hand around her breast and squeezed her nipple, hard. “
Her pleasure.
”

Edward snorted.

Amara couldn’t stay still any longer. She squirmed against the pressure of his fingers, only wanting to get away. The Demon held on tighter. His grip was not painful, but she knew herself, and his touch would never be a pleasure. At the very last, she understood. She was doomed. Because she had no pleasure in her.

“However, until she is pleased--”

The grand door opened slowly. The old man who had shown them in approached her husband. Her eyes widened slightly as she saw the handcuffs.

Her stomach spun, acid churned, and a slick sweat broke on her forehead. Were the cuffs for her?

With quick efficiency, the butler snapped her husband’s hands behind his back. “Hey!”

“You will be my...guest.”

Amara couldn’t prevent the fierce stab of satisfaction at the Demon’s words. She was not the only one to be imprisoned.

“But you took her.”

“Actually, I believe you offered her.” The Demon shifted subtly, the hard throb of his erection pulsed against the seam of her ass. She would have to pretend to enjoy her sexual torture. As she softened her body against the Demon, she wasn’t sure what disgusted her more, his obviously erect penis or her stupid soon-to-be-dead husband.

Shock flashed over Edward’s features as her husband finally understood what the Demon had arranged.

“Now she is mine.”

“Who are you?” she blurted.

“He didn’t explain?”

Slowly Amara shook her head.

“I am Vetis, Demon of Corruption.”

Chapter Three

The challenge was on.

Vetis loved the bargain he’d made. It was so very perfect.

Prince Gaap wouldn’t be happy but by the Gods, Vetis needed some satisfaction. Some challenge. He’d been doing his part dutifully. The Demons had plenty of energy stored for the imminent Fae attack. There was plenty available for wielding magick.

The gambler sputtered all the way out the door. Figgins was obediently mute while he ushered the man toward the dungeon. Vetis smirked as he saw what Edward had visualized. The dungeon would be a far sight nastier than the threesome with two blondes Edward had anticipated after he’d agreed to the deal.

Vetis laughed. The sound a rough bark in the now silent chamber.

The woman on his lap stiffened. And Gods, the move pushed her ass against his suddenly, finally interested member.

“Why in the Gods name did you ever marry him?”

She didn’t say a word. Just held still, perched over one of his thighs, legs spread while her thighs gripped him with surprising strength. Likely so they wouldn’t have to touch anywhere else.

“You have to answer me.” Honesty wasn’t part of the terms of their bargain. The Fae had cornered the market on compelling Humans to tell the truth. But as she turned to glare at him, her ice blue eyes shooting heat, he gleefully understood she didn’t realize that.

The movement caused her top to gape. The halter strap sagged, exposing one beautifully pert, pale pink nipple. His cock surged, straining his breeches, arousing him as nothing had in a good long time.

In a lazy movement, he swooped his hand up the naked skin of her back, and gently pulled the strap from its bow. The fabric stripped away, like the peel of a banana and bared her beautiful breasts to his avid gaze.

He captured the frigid nipple in his hot mouth and suckled.

She was stone cold. Not aroused at all. With her lack of emotion, he withered. Which did not make him happy.

She was the perfect challenge. A woman without pleasure. And his job was to make her writhe with it for an entire night. He must be up for the task.

But before he could turn her into a pleasure slave he needed to know why she was not aroused.

Enough of this indulgence. “Answer me.” He demanded in a hard voice.

“My father sought Edward’s clan to protect me.” She swallowed back a sob. In her mind, he saw an ailing old man as he begged the stupid gambler to marry his daughter. And Vetis understood.

Her true emotions blazed through his body like a wildfire. Love. Grief. Both sizzled through him and energized his body even as he witnessed the horrible destruction the apocalypse had wrought on her village.

Since then her world had regressed to a simpler time. Humans now understood they inhabited the Earth with all manner of creatures stronger than them, fiercer than them. And yet the Demons and Fae still had need of the energy from Human emotions.

Vetis popped the nipple out of his mouth. He nuzzled the pale valley between her breasts and inhaled the warm clean scent of her. He licked the underside of her left breast marbled with blue veins. There he discovered the small round scar seemingly at odds with the rest of her fine soft skin.

She flinched.

Where she had not shown any reaction to his sexual overtures, the attention of his tongue to this scar caused her distress?

He leaned back and cupped the large globe with both hands, inhaling her scent, thumbing her nipple once more, until she calmed.

Then he deliberately fingered the round uneven scar, a travesty against her beauty. “Cigarette?” he inquired softly.

Her heart beat violently, thumping so hard against her breastbone, her breasts shook.

“How?”

She remained silent, but the scene in her mind gave her away. Sandwiched between two men, one mounting her from behind, the other holding a faggot, glowing like a brand against her breast. Her back arched in agony against the double assault. Their laughter echoed in his mind.

He cursed the impulse to disclose his secret, even as the words escaped his mouth. “Did you know I can read minds?” He revealed to her knowledge that few possessed.

She blanched, then met his gaze in a mixture of defiance and misery.

“The shame is not yours.” He was compelled to comfort her.

“You are doomed to be stuck with me forever.”

“You have such little faith in my carnal abilities,” he mocked.

“Wrong. I have no faith.”

“It looks as if we have a long way to go in your seduction,” he drawled. Anger, and some other emotion seethed below the surface. No wonder she believed herself incapable. Had anyone ever given her pleasure?

Even worse. How would he corrupt someone without avarice?

The door to his chamber slammed open. “So did you siphon energy off the dolt?” Zepar, his friend and sometimes partner in more erotic endeavors strode into the room.

“Not yet.”

“Gaap is going to be pissed. His mandate requires us to wring every drop of energy from--” Zepar halted, suddenly noticing Amara on his lap. She hunched her shoulders and turned away from the doorway, trying to hide her body, arms crossed over her breasts defensively.

“Well,” Zepar said softly. “What have we here?”

His smile was sharp, wicked as he arched a brow at Vetis.

The answer came to him in a flash of brilliance. “Zepar, you are just the Demon I am in need of.”

Chapter Four

Amara stiffened. She wanted to tilt her head forward. If she moved just so, the tendrils of her hair would hide her breasts from the Demon who had just entered. She refused to show fear. Even as her heart quaked in her chest. She vowed to accept whatever punishment they meted out, not cower in fear.

Vetis tensed and his muscles hardened. The cords in his thighs shifted against her female mound, and for a moment the movement did not feel all bad.

Amara would service these Demons, settle the debt her husband incurred, and steal back her dignity once and for all.

She pushed her chin up and narrowed her gaze, ready for them. Vetis ran his fingers along the back of her neck, the rough pads abrading her skin, yet not in an unpleasant way.

“What did you have in mind?” The new Demon’s voice rumbled in the room. The hint of wood smoke and a musky underlay of male semen wafted from him. A wicked smile graced his face as he crossed his arms over his heavily muscled chest. His biceps bunched and flexed. And she knew he could subdue her with little effort.

She was strong but these were Demons.

Devils. Sure to damage her.

Earlier Vetis had seemed almost fierce on her behalf, but she couldn’t let that moment lull her into a false sense of security. These beasts would use her for their own amusement with no thought to her or how they hurt her.

She would not tremble in their presence.

The big Demon, Zepar, strode to the dais and leapt up the steps in one giant bound. Instinctively she wanted to recoil but held her ground.

The pads of his fingers were gentle on her chin as he lifted her face.

He stared at her as if trying to see into her soul.

“This is not your usual sport.” The big Demon frowned. His forest green gaze shot to Vetis, with a clear question in his eyes.

“Your place is not to question me,” Vetis replied arrogantly.

Gods the man, Demon, had an ego.

Zepar trailed his fingers over the bare skin of her shoulder, his touch almost delicate. “Then what are you about?”

“Pleasure,” Vetis hummed.

“I am always on board with that goal.” Zepar, the big one grinned, his teeth snapped together with glee.

“I knew you would be.” Vetis tugged her halter top up. For a second she thought he was covering her up. Instead he tugged the offensive black top over her head to bare her breasts to both men.

“What about the mandate?”

“I have trolled the gaming tables for the past month, absorbing and storing Human energy.” Vetis flexed his fingers against her breast. “I am ready for some fun.”

“I’ll bet we can have an inordinate amount with this beauty.” The big blond Demon knelt and tapped his finger on her mouth. Fear held her immobile. He was huge. “What’s your name sweetheart?”

Amara hesitated. Everyone knew to engage a Demon was considered the height of folly. Their trickery was legend, second only to that of the Fae.

Vetis wrapped his hand in her hair and twisted her head back at an awkward angle. She arched her back to relieve the pressure, determined not to wince. “You will answer.”

The move thrust her breasts forward.

“Gods, they are gorgeous.” The big blond Demon leaned in to nuzzle her flesh. With his tongue, he licked the valley between her pendulous breasts. Then he closed his eyes and inhaled slowly.