To Summon a Demon (4 page)

voyeur’s name?”

Gaap felt a surprising and unwelcome rage rise up within him. He’d be damned if she summoned Leraye...or any other Demon. She was his.

He tightened his grip on her arm painfully but she didn’t cry out. “You don’t need another Demon.”

“That remains to be seen. I will have my vengeance.”

“For someone who was willing to die a few moments ago you certainly have changed your

tune.”

“The sex seems to have given me a second wind,” she shot back. “Where are you taking me?”

Gaap tugged her toward the road. Zepar and Leraye trailed behind them and watched his back.

He should let his security chief take her home but he was strangely reluctant to let her go.

Against all common sense. Every step took them further away from their beach tryst and closer to reality.

He needed more information. “What is your name?”

“Lili.”

“I’m taking you home.” A pang of regret rippled through him. “Lili.” He let her name roll off his tongue. The name sweet and completely unlike her slightly acerbic personality.

“No thanks.” She tugged her arm from his grip and ran.

Gaap let her go, resisting the urge to go after her. It would be complete folly.

“Follow her.” He commanded Leraye. “See if she has any contact with the Fae. We need to discover what they are planning.”

Three nights later, Gaap hovered in the bushes, like a peeping Thom and waited for a show of the beautiful Lili.

She wanted vengeance.

Her situation couldn’t be nearly that simple. But at the same time, if he didn’t interact with her they would never find out what the Fae intended. And though he hadn’t admitted such to his friends, he didn’t want her using any other Demon the way she’d used him.

Her home was...minuscule. A living area, cooking area, and separate bath. That was it. He still had some discomfort when in small confined spaces. A decade of freedom could not eradicate the memory of millions of tons of rock hanging over your head.

Gaap spent as much time out of doors as possible.

Even better, he spent time in any body of water. He’d been denied access to the sea for the thousands of years of incarceration. The deprivation had been like a small death in its own way.

So he now submerged whenever he could.

He watched her through the open curtains. The flickering glow from her fireplace bathed her features in a soft, entrancing light.

A false light.

Her movements were efficient, controlled, and subdued, unlike when she’d been pounding against him as she rode his cock with a sensual abandon.

Gaap grew hard at the memory.

A frequent occurrence in the last three days. He’d resorted to cold showers and relieving himself several times a day. But then all he had to do was think about her purple eyes flashing annoyance at him and he’d grow hard again.

She leaned over the stove and lifted a wooden spoon to her mouth. Steam rose from the pot wreathing her face. Even from this distance, he could see her pink tongue venture out to lick the spoon.

An image of her, licking his cock with that succulent pink tongue, thickened him even further.

Gods, he needed to fuck her again.

And yet he couldn’t take the chance.

Could this be a compulsion planted by the Fae?

But how? And why? The logical solution was to kill her. Eliminate the threat.

He might yet decide her death was the only possible outcome. Right at this moment, all he knew was he had to see her, touch her, taste her once again.

He’d come here against the counsel of Leraye and the rest of the Demon Princes. They thought Gaap should wait for her to make the next move.

He, however, wanted to keep her off balance.

And what better way to do that than to show up at her home. Frighten her. Shock a confession out of her.

The final agreement had been reached just an hour ago. Leraye would keep watch over Gaap while he was with Lili.

After thirty minutes in which little happened, he wondered if the Fae would somehow show themselves. However, he knew that was a futile wish.

The Fae were too clever. A small part of him wished that she were innocent. Wished that the stink of the Fae on her was merely an aberration. As if they’d brushed up against her in the marketplace, rather than the unmistakable odor of a setup and betrayal. But that wish was foolish, designed for a younger more gullible Demon than he.

He had no illusions left.

Gaap knocked on the front door of the tiny cabin and waited.

Nothing moved.

The very air seemed stifled as stillness radiated around him. He knocked again. Did she not have visitors?

Gaap pounded his fist against the sturdy door, noting the ward, a subtle protection against both Fae and Demon, carved into the wooden lintel.

“Coming,” she finally called. The sultry rasp of her voice vibrated against his nerve endings. She had the sexiest voice he’d ever heard.

The door swung open.

Lili’s eyes widened. For a moment, her gaze darted behind him as if she looked for an unseen enemy. “What are you doing here?”

“You summoned me.” He leered. “Quite effectively I might add.”

A deep flush spread over her pale cheeks, but then she shot back with a scathing retort. “A gentleman wouldn’t bring that up.”

“Whoever said that Demons were gentlemen?”

Pink bloomed over the cleavage of her large breasts. “You are absolutely right.”

Just so they were absolutely clear. “No gentleman can defeat the Fae.”

Her gaze darted to the open doorway, as if she expected to see the wily fuckers lurking behind him.

No one was there. He’d checked, double-checked, and triple-checked for glamour before he approached her cottage.

She nodded. “You’re right.”

The time to find out what was really going on had arrived. Unfortunately, all he could think of was getting back into the lush curves of her body.

“So you will help me?” The hope in her gaze caused a sensation he was unfamiliar with to curl in his stomach. His only intention was to help himself. To her body.

He’d forgotten how incredibly sexy she was. How her purple gaze seemed to be a conduit to the secrets of the Universe. But a legion of Demons hid around the perimeter of her house and his mission was about information, not sex. Unfortunately.

Off balance.

That’s what he needed her to be. And if he came inside her again, he would be the one off balance. This meant, as much as it pained him, she was off limits.

For now.

A wicked thrill of anticipation went through Lili.

She’d barely been able to think about anything but her encounter with the Demon three nights ago. She’d tried to keep her mind on how he could help her. On what to do the next time they met.

She had known that they would meet again.

Lili knew she should focus on her revenge. But Gaap, with his hard body and even harder gaze, captivated her. He would be her tool.

And she would be his, until her revenge was complete.

That was how using a Demon worked. The information in the ancient book she’d found was very specific. In exchange for fucking her, he would help her.

But Gods, her thoughts had continually gone to how good the fucking had been and not about how she would enact revenge against the Fae.

“What do you want from me?” The smoky sultry note in her voice surprised even her.

He pushed into her tiny cottage and shoved the door closed.

Another thrill twirled through her body and flickered into her core as she anticipated what he would want from her.

Gaap dominated the small space of her single room cottage, filling up all the lonely spaces that had been empty for ten long years.

She let all of what she was feeling pour into her gaze as she traced the lines of his body.

She’d had no idea that Demons were so...large. He was big everywhere.

His feet were encased in expensive leather boots. Tight breeches clung to his massive calves and thighs which rivaled the trunk of the rowan tree in her tiny front yard.

The ripples of his stomach muscles were visible through the cotton tunic molded to his torso. His shoulders could put Atlas to shame. He would have no problem fighting off the sorrows that haunted her since she had lived and her Brian had died.

With the thought of all that strength concentrated on her, Lili's body prepared for his.

Lili looked up, but not very far. Though the difference was slight, he was still taller, and another tiny thrill coursed through her. Few people were taller than she. That detail had tormented her for her entire life. She’d stopped hunching her shoulders years ago, but inside she was still that gawky, awkward teenager who would always be a bit of a freak.

The heat in his gaze liquefied her until she was all but melting into him.

“Let’s go,” he said harshly. His words banished her desire.

Palpable disappointment streamed through her. She had the random thought that if she ever crossed him, very bad things would happen. Lili licked her lips when the thought didn’t send her running out the back door.

The planes of his face were tight, hard, unforgiving. The warm tan of his skin offset his whiskey eyes and strong blade of a nose. His burnished copper hair flowed away from his cheekbones as if to show them off.

“Where?” she said breathlessly. She had to find her balance, find her anger, those emotions had kept her sane for the last ten years.

“You’re going to show me where you were attacked.”

A sick dread settled in the pit of her stomach. Her arousal turned toxic and chased away the feeling that she'd morphed into a giddy teenager.

“Let me get my cloak.”

Surreptitiously she tucked her knife into the sheath wrapped around her thigh. And she added another smaller blade to the holder strapped to her wrist. She’d become lax about carrying weapons. Because no one had bothered her.

Even the Fae who liked their women comely and docile had left her alone until last week.

Lili led the way to the clearing where the Fae had attacked. The pit of her stomach twisted. This used to be a pretty place. Sweat broke on her forehead and pain speared her left eye socket as they approached.

Unable to focus clearly, hazy images of the attack flitted through her mind. Her heart thudded.

She couldn’t quite remember. She could only relive the fear, and the nebulous anxiety that trembled through her limbs. She didn’t want to go in there.

Didn’t want to recall those awful moments again.

Since the attack, she’d gone out of her way to avoid the clearing. The lush glade wasn’t that far from her little cottage, just past the edge of the nearest village.

When the world infrastructure had collapsed, shipping goods and food had become so expensive that the economy had folded back into small villages where the small economies could sustain the population of the village. Barter economies. Skills that had been near extinct in the age of machines were suddenly necessary to the survival of the remaining population.

The quiet of the forest was broken only by their heavy footfalls and the scuttle of woodland animals in the underbrush.

“What made you come this way?”

“I had delivered a new suit to the bookseller in the next village.” Her fingers were still cramped and twisted from the amount of stitching in his formal suit. Lili had been working day and night on the suit to finish in time for the bookseller’s wedding. Every stitch reminded her of the love she had lost and the life forfeited because of the return of the Demons to the Earth’s surface. The bitterness had been overwhelming.

But the credit she’d amassed for the rush job had been thrilling.

Books were her passion. Her secret pleasure.

And her only companions.

She stood in the clearing and looked at the Faery mound blankly.

“Do you usually come this way?”

Lili frowned, thinking back to the day she was attacked and wondering why she’d taken this short cut through the woods. “I...don’t remember.”

Usually she stayed away from anything that had to do with the Fae, not wanting to draw their attention, not wanting to engage them.

Gaap leaned against the twisted, gnarled trunk of a particularly enormous tree, arms crossed over his chest. But something in his casual stance warned Lili.

She started to ask what was wrong.

The tingle at the back of her neck warned her. She decided that getting her knife was a higher priority than talking.

The Fir Bolg, Fae assassins, swarmed the clearing.

Oh hell no. Lili’s heart thudded in her chest. She refused to be a victim again. She refused to be afraid. The handle of the knife was cold and resolute in her hand. She brandished the blade with intent, more than ready to defend herself.

But they paid her no mind. The ten assassins converged on Gaap.

Gaap had hoped he was wrong about Lili and the trap.

But as the mob of Fir Bolg poured into the clearing and headed straight for him, he knew he’d been right. She’d been the bait.

Dammit.

The intensity of his disappointment felt out of proportion to the length of their interaction. He really should have fucked her one more time before coming out here. But he’d wanted to take his time. Rather than a quick screw against a rock wall, he’d wanted to spend hours exploring her body and making her explode with passion.

Oh well.

He gripped his blade sure and steady in his right hand as he anticipated the imminent attack.

The Fir Bolg tended to be deceptively short. Their muscular, wiry bodies had a lower center of gravity than the larger Demons. Although they lacked the body mass of Demons, they were designed for easy evasion and quick reaction.

The trunk of the tree he’d chosen for his defensive position was thick enough that no one could reach him from behind it. The position limited the points of access from his enemy.

Gaap counted nine.

Plus Lili.

It was really going to piss him off when he had to kill her.