The Demon's Seduction (12 page)

Yawn
.

So Vetis turned his gaze to the woman. She’d been dressed up like a hooker on the walk. Black stiletto heels, a black micro-mini so short he was sure if she turned around, he’d be able to see the globes of her ass peeking out the bottom, her wares on display. The black halter top was cut down to her belly button, in a wide V, displaying a decent set of breasts. Large, round, real, her nipples poked the black material but there was no doubt it was not from arousal.

Her face was like stone. Sharp caramel eyebrows over a long blade of a nose and a cupid’s bow mouth the angels would have wept for, except for the fact that she was not smiling. Her angelic blond hair tumbled down her back.

But what drew him was her eyes.

Not one single emotion betrayed her. Her gaze was flat, blue, empty. When he probed her mind, he saw...nothing.

How curious. As the Demon of Corruption, his goal in life was to make people do things against their nature. But first he needed to know their nature. Her mind was blank. Too blank.

“You think to bring me a prostitute to pay off your debt?”

By only a flicker of her eyelid did she reveal her distress. Not a prostitute then.

“No, no.” The gambler laughed and a hint of nervousness finally edged into his mind. He pinched the woman, hard, on her arm. “This is my wife. Smile, dear.”

The woman’s x-rated mouth remained still.

“Your wife?” Vetis said flatly. He pressed his mouth into a straight line. It was nearly impossible to corrupt one already so depraved as to offer his wife to a Demon. Now if the gambler had protested, it would have been fun to demand her as payment. But this, this was annoying.

This...insect dared to try to dupe
him
?

“And why did you bring her with you?” Vetis slumped even further in the chair, shifting his weight to put his chin on his fist.
Come, you ass. Show me your true colors so I can decide what your punishment shall be. And how I can reap the energy from your psyche.

“I would offer her to you.”

“I see.” Vetis blinked slowly. The woman hadn’t made any movement. None. She was preternaturally still. And her mind continued to stay amazingly blank. He had no idea if the man’s offer repulsed her or aroused her. Absolutely none.

What an interesting turn of events.

“Come closer, sweet.” He crooked a single finger at her, watching her dead eyes. The burning wood crackled, sparks flaring in the still silent cavern of a room as the earthy aroma of peat wafted lazily through the air.

The woman didn’t move.

“Is she drugged?” Vetis asked with pretended idleness. He couldn’t say why the thought enraged him, but Vetis suddenly wished the man would answer yes, just so he could hurt him.

Edward shifted, his body turned toward the fire as if mesmerized. “No, my Lord.” He pushed his bride toward Vetis without so much as a flinch. “Go to him.”

She shuffled toward him in the stilettos, her gait uneven, as if she were unaccustomed to walking in the sharp heels. The sacrificial woman hesitated at the two-tiered dais that held his chair.

“Come, come, up the steps.”

She lifted her gaze to his. Still no emotion. Still no feeling. And apparently she was mute. After another moment of hesitation she placed one foot daintily in front of the other until she stood directly in front of him.

Up close he could see the makeup slathered over her face. Rouge painted her cheeks, deathly pale beneath the false front. Her mouth, the pouty, puffy lips glossed shiny and slick, trembled.

Finally emotion. Energy he could feed off of. Fear? Desire?

Vetis tested the air, sniffing delicately to sense her mood. Besides an overabundance of some blowsy floral perfume, nothing else scented the air.

“Of course, I can’t make a decision until I sample the merchandise.” He rubbed his fingers against his thumb, then wiggled his digits, like a safecracker getting ready to breach a vault. Vetis slid his palm inside the slinky halter top and brushed a thumb against her nipple.

The woman’s skin was frigid.

As cold as her ice blue eyes.

Even in the heat of his room, she was nearly frozen. She didn’t react. Not one flicker of emotion crossed her face. With the exception of that slight tremble in her lips and the barest flinch of an eyelid earlier, she showed no reaction. She remained perfectly still while he brushed his thumb against the hard point.

He slid his other hand between her knees and with a gentle press, indicated she spread her legs. The skin of her inner thigh was soft as the down feathers that stuffed the comforter on his bed. Slowly, he slid his fingers toward her mound.

No underwear blocked his path. Wiry curls protected her feminine slit. He rubbed his fingers over her. Nothing. No juice wet his hand. The little nub of her clitoris was cold and dry against his fingertips.

He couldn’t take his gaze away from hers.

She was like a giant void. He had to wonder, as she stood without protest against his intimate invasion. What would it take to corrupt her?

Tucked into leather breeches, his cock lay flaccid against his stomach. He waited for some sort of response. If nothing else she’d be good for a few blow jobs. He imagined his cock ramming in and out of her mouth, fucking her throat, until he came jetting down into her body.

And still his body remained limp, uninterested.

Gods, this boredom was killing him.

The sensible, the logical move would be to send the woman home and feed off the sick energy pouring from the gambler. But, her absolute lack of emotion was like a siren, tempting him toward an uncertain path and payout. He wanted to corrupt her, wanted to harness her energy.

Prince Gaap would clearly advocate for the former.

But Vetis needed something. Needed a challenge.

The woman stood straight and still while he tested her indifference. With one hand he cupped her breast while he trailed the other back down her thigh.

He probed her mind again. And finally, he saw.

Excerpt from To Summon A Demon

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The moon hung low in the sky. Pale blue light rippled over the lapping waves. The soft shush-shush of the ocean licked at the shimmering white sand like a lover.

Lili spread her blanket in the secret little cove, hidden by a pair of boulders rising out of the sand like breasts laid out as an offering. “Apt,” she murmured.

With a gust of warm wind, the ties on her shift loosened and the rough material swished against her naked skin. Lili constructed a small ring of stones near the edge of the water with careful precision, close enough that if the fire tried to spread the sea water would put it out and yet far enough inland to burn. She arranged the dry tinder in the small circle, making a small teepee, then threw in the shredded pieces of clothing she’d had worn yesterday.

She would have never done something like this before.

Before Brian had died.

Before her life had been reduced to scrabbling for existence.

She remembered the world before the Demons were freed.

She’d been in computer sales. She’d had a good life in the city. A condo in a high rise and her fiancé in her bed. Sewing, hand-stitching, had been a hobby. An activity that linked her to her roots and helped her stay connected to her grandmother who lived in a quaint cottage in Ireland.

But once the Demons emerged, the energy in their bodies disrupted the electricity grids. Soon after they ascended from the depths of their Hell, systems started going haywire. Within a month, the entire world’s electronic infrastructure had crumbled. The information highway was a rutted, unused back road. Banks, stock markets, the tech industry collapsed without the proper conduits in place.

The entire world regressed to a pre-electronic age.

And without the electronics to power systems, other industries soon fell into chaos. Ten years later the entire world had gone back to an age she had barely even read about. She’d had to relearn how to do everything without the aid of electricity.

The reality of her daily life still had the power to throw her.

But she’d dealt with everything until yesterday.

Yesterday. Before she’d delivered the bookseller’s wedding dress. Yesterday before the Fae had attacked her.

Yesterday had been the final straw. They’d attacked her.

The memory of their hands groping, hurting played in her mind like an old-fashioned movie strip. Each roll of the film sickened her more and more, until she wanted to scream and explode with her rage and her fear.

Every single miserable moment in her life could be attributed to the Fae. And she wanted them to pay.

She would get her revenge.

And who better to use than the mortal enemy of the Fae? The Demons.

Specifically, the Prince Gaap. He commanded all of the Water Elemental Demons.

The urge to hum a protective chant was strong but she knew she needed to wait. The instructions she’d found on how to summon a Demon were very specific.

When the fire was lit and the flames fanned into a crackling offering, she lay down on the blanket, feeling a bit silly, even though her purpose was deadly serious.

She remembered life before the Demons had come.

Her life had been good. Solid. Happy.

Now? Not so much.

The Fae had attacked her. Stolen the one thing she had left. Her dignity.

She’d made her own way in the world, without a man to protect her, without a family behind her. She stayed out of the way and concentrated on survival. All the while mourning her fiancé Brian and the rest of her family.

But the Fae had changed all that when they’d attacked her. They had violated her body and suddenly the injustices of the last ten years rose up like a tidal wave inside of her and threatened to pull her under. She wouldn’t let them destroy her.

Only the Demons could aid her revenge against the Fae.

The sand chilled her through the wool weave of the old blanket. Goosebumps shivered across her skin and pebbled her nipples.

Lili closed her eyes and called a Demon.

“Gaap,” she whispered as she slid her hands up her body to cup her breasts. “I offer myself to you in exchange for your help.”

Jake's Wild Bride...Coming Soon

Lisa Alder has two sides, a naughty side and a nice side. You've gotten a taste of her naughty side, come take a peak at her nice side.

Jake's Wild Bride is a sexy, contemporary romantic romp.

Lilah Mason is a woman on the brink of realizing her dreams of respectability and security when her fiancee dumps her the night before their wedding. Actually, he has his best man, Jake Forrest dump her. Jake is back in town only long enough to see his best friend married and to clean out his childhood home so he can leave behind his past reckless behavior once and for all. But first he has to babysit his old friend's ex-fiancee. It doesn't help that he is wildly attracted her her, but he's been down that road and vows to keep his hands to himself. What he doesn't count on is Lilah.

Excerpt from Dark Mercy (Masters of Mercy)

By Rebecca Lyndon

June 1098, outside the walls of Antioch

She came from the water.

Richard of Guildford caught sight of someone rising from the waves of the Orontes. Gooseflesh rose up along his arms despite the lingering heat of day. He couldn’t tell through the dark desert night who disturbed the surface of the river, but he held up his balled fist, silently signaling the eight men following behind him to stop. Richard hadn’t kept them alive on their trek to the Holy Land these past three years by ignoring his gut instincts.

They were far from the reinforcements of the siege camp, and, even though Richard believed to his core that his men were the best there were, none of them would stand a chance against a large enough ambush.

He pulled his sword from its scabbard as a lithe form rose above the water. A lone woman that moved with an unearthly grace. Gossamer silks clung to her body as she floated toward the bank. Silver moonlight glistened off the curve of her breasts and the wide swell of her hips. Her dark mound showed clearly beneath the thin fabric. Richard tightened his grip around the hilt of his blade even as his cock hardened.

She smiled as she stepped onto the grassy bank. Hardly the reaction one expected of a seemingly defenseless woman facing an armed band of warriors. But this was no ordinary woman. Even if Richard had not seen her gliding across the river, he still would have sensed it. Her amethyst eyes sparkled with their own light.

“Put down your weapons.”

Richard heard her voice, clear and loud in his mind, but her full, red lips had not moved. He was certain of it.

When Richard shook his head in an exaggerated manner, commanding his men to stand firm against her, she waved her hand. The steel tip of his sword was forced to the ground with such strength that it buried in the cracked earth at his feet. Richard turned to see that the same unseen force had disarmed them all.

“What are you?”Richard demanded.

The willowy creature slid her gaze appreciatively down his body as she stepped closer. Her dark nipples puckered. “I go by many names, but you may call me Ashira.”

“And I say, we are better off calling you by your true name,” Richard’s second in command, Rhys, said from directly behind him. “Demon”

“Whatever name you choose for me is of little importance. What you should be interested in is what I can do for you.”

“We want nothing from you she-devil,” Richard said.

She dragged a slender finger down his chest. Richard tried to raise his hand to slap her away but found he was frozen, held fast by invisible bonds.

“Is that so? Your minds, all of them, tell a different story. Each one of you is a powerful warrior. Together you are perhaps the most potent fighting force in this war. This crusade of yours has made brothers of you, but it has also worn you thin. You are all tired,” she said, weaving through the line of men as her dark magic held them immobile. She stopped in front of each man, looking deep into his eyes, taking his measure. “You are tired of watching good men cut down. You grow tired of watching your friends waste away with disease, their minds devoured by madness. But most of all you are tired of waiting to get your due.”