Blood be Damned: Magic Wars (Demons of New Chicago Book 3), page 14
With that, she snapped her fingers and the metal bands dissolved into thin air.
The humans kneeling looked around as if they weren’t able to believe she let them go.
A second passed for that information to set in before the vast majority of them ran like they were on fire, tripping over each other to get away.
Bree sauntered back to the tent and regarded it with a keen eye.
“I’d suggest using a glamour if you want to return,” she said to Nat. “And our four hours are up,” she added for me.
Bree started to stride away, and it irked me that she walked when I knew she didn’t have to. She could have disappeared right then. But she was waiting for something. Or rather, someone.
“Will you help me?” I called out.
Bree paused, and I saw the smirk on her lips as she turned her head sideways.
“I’ll pick you up at seven tomorrow. Don’t wear anything you’re attached to.”
Then she vanished.
“She’s an even bigger asshole than you,” Nat said with a whistle.
“You’re telling me,” I grumbled, scowling at the spot she disappeared.
I could have sworn I heard a condescending laugh on the wind.
23
I sensed him the second before he appeared. His magic thickened the air. Chaos twined around me, brushing against my skin. The hair on my arms rose to awareness. I kept my back turned while I selected another bell pepper for dinner.
“I gotta say, I’m surprised.”
“About?” His voice was husky. Dark. Something had happened in the last few days we were apart. Something that made me tip my chin and narrow my eyes at the ripe orange vegetable in my hand. The snap of the stem was sharp in my ears as I pulled it.
“How long it took you.” I turned to the side and kept walking, pretending to search for something else even though I had all we needed. “Given how many spies you have in the city, I assumed you’d hear about it earlier.”
“I did.”
My step faltered.
“I felt it when it happened. I was there, just outside the market,” he said. I blinked to hide my reaction. “You’re surprised.” It wasn’t a guess. I suppose I should have known he would know. My emotions were far from closed off to him—thanks to the bridge that always connected our minds.
“You have a habit of trying to save me,” I replied, taking another step and looking over the lush green trees and plants, but not truly seeing them.
“You told me you didn’t want to be saved.” I paused again, hand covering over a crop labeled parsley. “I couldn’t stay away. That was out of the question. When you panicked over Nathalie, I felt that through the bond, and I almost killed the humans right there . . .”
“But you didn’t.”
“You’re trying. I can try too.”
While Ronan was a man of few words, they were poignant. Important. Deeply so.
“I appreciate the vote of confidence,” I said, finally setting the basket down and turning around. Eyes like winter skies and steel speared right through me. Burning with cold, cruel heat.
“I almost didn’t,” he admitted. “I was this close.” He held his index finger and thumb only a sliver apart. He took a step forward.
“What stopped you?” I asked softly, a huskiness entering my own voice.
He smiled faintly, but it wasn’t kind. “I don’t think you want that truth.”
“Do I ever want anything else?” I lifted an eyebrow in challenge.
“If they laid a hand on you, I could end them. Even from where I was. I didn’t even need to lift a hand. You were never in danger. Only them.”
I chuckled, but it was flat. Hollow. He’d held himself back because he didn’t need his hands if it came to that. “I suppose you did warn me.”
“I never lie to you,” he said, taking another step forward.
“Except about Anders?” I shot back without missing a beat.
His eyes darkened. Fire coming to life.
“I didn’t lie.”
“You omitted the truth as a way of lying.”
“Why does it even matter?” he questioned, taking another step. “You worked together. He handed you over to Lucifer. Nothing more.”
I cocked my head, a wry smile fighting its way to my lips. “And if we were?” I questioned.
He reached out to wrap his fingers around the nape of my neck, forcing my head back to look at him. “Were you?”
“Does it matter?” I purred, enjoying the way his hand was beginning to burn.
“Yes,” he bit out.
“Why?” I said, egging him on.
“Because he’s downstairs helping Nat and the succubi with dinner, and I need to know if I’m forcibly removing him before we go down there.”
I blinked. That was not the answer I expected.
Slowly, a wicked smile curled around my lips. The fire banked just a fraction in his eyes as he realized I was messing with him. “Really? You really think I was fucking him?” I laughed.
Ronan’s head dropped forward. He cursed darkly in a language I didn’t understand, and didn't believe I’d ever heard before.
“You’re going to be the death of me, woman,” he growled sharply.
His lips came down on mine. He bit my bottom lip, making me gasp, and used the opportunity to kiss me deeper. His tongue brushed against mine, tasting of cinnamon and chaos. Tiny embers of fire sparked, heat curling around my core.
I reached up and fisted my hands in his sable locks, pulling him closer. Ronan groaned, pushing me back. My butt bumped into a hard edge before pressing against it. He grabbed my thigh and pulled it up, giving him better access. I curled my leg around his waist, and he shifted his hold to my ass—lifting me in a single swoop—as if I weighed nothing.
I swung my other leg around him, locking my ankles behind his back.
“If we break the table, I’ll never hear the end of it,” I murmured against his lips.
“I’ll buy her a new one.”
Well, that answered that.
Ronan pushed me back, balancing my ass on the edge of it. Too far back to stand and too far forward that I’d fall if not for his body wedging itself between my legs.
I pulled hard on his hair and he pulled hard on me.
We probably shouldn’t have been doing this, on the rooftop, in the greenhouse where anyone could find us. But . . .
He reached around to pop the button on my jeans.
“Grab the edge,” he ordered.
“And if I don’t?” I taunted.
He dropped to his knees and my body rocked forward. The only reason I didn’t face plant was the hand against my abdomen.
Twisting my lips together, I did what he said. My hands curled around the table. “Up,” he commanded. I lifted my weight so he could grab both my jeans and panties and peel them down the length of my body. Usually we didn’t go through this step—fire and all being an issue with clothes. It seemed this time he was taking precautions.
“We have to go back downstairs,” he said, answering my thoughts.
“You could just take us through the void.”
“I don’t have clothes here,” he said. I narrowed my eyes, finding his logic odd given he could just as easily go back to his place—
The flat of his tongue pressed against my clit, drawing a guttural moan from me.
“Stop thinking,” he growled.
“Keep doing that and I will,” I breathed.
Ronan was happy to oblige.
Two blunt fingers entered me. My lips parted as the breath hissed between my teeth.
“Fuck.”
“I plan to,” he murmured against my thigh. His fingers crooked, tapping that place deep inside me that made me want to scream. Instead, I spread my legs wider. His stubbled jaw brushed against the sensitive skin. He turned his head away from my apex, nuzzling my thigh. I breathed easier for a moment.
I should have known better.
He struck like a snake, fangs burrowing into the artery there.
I rocked forward as the force of my orgasm swept through me. Sudden and unexpected. He reached up with his free hand to clap it over my mouth as a scream that could wake the dead forced itself out of my lungs. My pussy clenched over and over again.
My legs quaked, going taut then loose.
Shivers worked their way up my spine, turning to tremors as he took another pull and pinched my clit. The oversensitive nub protested his abuse. I tried to swat his hand away and he caught it.
Black eyes stared deep into mine. Despite knowing without a shadow of doubt this was the Harvester, I didn’t feel fear.
Not breaking eye contact, he licked the tiny droplets of blood that dotted my thigh. His puncture wounds already healed.
“Whose pussy is this?” His voice was soft as velvet and cold as a winter's night.
“Mine,” I replied, unable to resist the fight. How could I? I lived for it. Thrived on it.
His lips didn’t twitch with amusement. “And who do you belong to?”
“Myself.”
While our dynamic was ever-changing, evolving along with our relationship, we were still ourselves at the core. I wanted the fight. Ronan wanted me to give in.
I would. Eventually. But not before he worked for it.
He leveled me with a hard stare. When I didn’t change my answer, he leaned forward and grabbed the corner of my T-shirt , lifting it. He pointed at a section of red-tinted symbols—sweeping lines edged with shadow and lined in chaos.
“What does this say?” he prompted.
I pressed my lips together and his eyes narrowed. Never in a million years did I expect what came next.
Softly, so quietly that I almost missed it—he whispered my name.
My true name.
The one no other soul, dead or alive, knew.
It was a beautiful sound, my name. The syllables didn’t exist in this realm. They encompassed all that had been and all that I was. My darkness. My light. My rage. My desire. My struggle. It was all there.
So was my power.
Because to know a demon’s name was to own them.
To have the ability to control them.
Ronan whispered mine for the first time, and said, “Whose name does it say right here?” He pointed to the same section of text.
I swallowed hoarsely.
“Yours.”
His eyes darkened with hunger. “Say it,” he commanded.
Unable to deny him, I uttered his back. The name that belonged to the true Harvester, king of demons, stealer of magic, soulmate of mine.
His eyes closed and his nostrils flared. An emotion akin to being fulfilled passed from him to me over the bridge between our minds.
“What does it mean that my name is branded on your skin?” he asked.
My nipples pebbled. The breath in my chest shook.
“That I’m yours,” I said quietly.
“I’ll only ask one more time, then.” He leaned forward, and his cool breath hit my sensitive skin, making me flush. “Whose pussy is this to lick?” He spread my legs further, licking me from bottom to top. “To suck?” His lips locked around my clit and pulled hard, making me shudder.
I inhaled sharply. “Yours.”
“To ruin?” he continued, a glimmer of amusement now surfacing.
“Yours,” I repeated, a little more impatiently. He whorled his tongue around my clit, eliciting a sharp jerk from my hips that nearly sent me sprawling. A laugh rumbled deep in his chest.
“I think you need a reminder,” he murmured.
“Ron—ah,” I gasped as his lips sucked on me greedily.
“Not my name, but I could get used to it.” I felt him smile against me as he pushed two fingers back in. Sensitive to the touch, I jerked back from him.
Ronan wouldn’t have any of it.
His mouth plucked and pulled while his calloused fingers dragged along every nerve ending, sending delicious sparks of pleasure shooting through me. The climb to my next orgasm was harder. He kept me on the edge, my body tense and yet tired. Ready, yet resistant. Every time he got close, he’d ask who owned me. Who owned my heart. My body. My fucking soul.
I knew what he was doing. Collecting every piece. Hoarding them to himself, these raw words and admissions I could only find when we were intimate.
He’d once said he wanted to own me, and I never doubted that.
It was only later that I realized the only way he ever could was if I gave myself to him.
Chose him.
It wasn’t a bid to control me . . . it was about choice.
Ronan said he wasn’t truly a man because he never had been. He was a demon, through and through, bred from the very pits of Hell.
But for me, he chose to be different. He chose to defy his very nature.
And I chose to give in to mine.
Give in to him.
Ronan worshipped me with his mouth. His tongue. His teeth. My back arched and my legs grew stiff. Taut. I balanced on the precipice of oblivion, waiting for him to take me there—because while I loved the fight, losing had never been more delicious.
“Come for me, Piper.”
I detonated. My body shook and my magic unfurled. I vaguely felt the prick of my fingers splitting as claws grew. My fangs fully descended, and promptly bit my bottom lip in an effort to not scream.
Ronan worked me through it, and when the fight left me and my body sagged, he got to his feet. “Better?” he asked.
“Aren’t you—” I struggled for words and motioned to his erection to get my question across.
“Later,” he said. “Nathalie almost has dinner ready, and I want to show you something first.”
My brows drew together in a quizzical line. “Show me something,” I repeated.
His answer was to hand me my clothes. My curiosity grew as I slipped my damp panties back on and buttoned up my jeans. I grabbed the basket, and he grabbed my hand, tugging me to his side and back toward the stairwell that led inside to the elevator.
“Is what you’re showing me at Nat’s place?”
“No,” he answered.
The doors slid open, and we stepped inside. I twisted my lips, trying and failing to guess what he was getting at. I reached for the button to the second floor without thinking and paused when I saw another.
The lit-up number three made my insides turn.
“Press it,” he said.
My mouth went dry, and my hand shook as I hit the number for the third floor. A number that hadn’t existed in the months I’d lived here.
The elevator bounced and then moved, traveling too fast and yet incredibly slow. It jerked to stop, and the doors pinged before opening.
I held my breath, not sure what to expect.
“What is this?” I asked, voice hoarse for a whole new reason as I took it in.
Gray-planked floors that still smelled faintly of varnish spanned on and on. A roaring fireplace, already lit, gave the room a slight cedar and smoky scent. The flames created shadows that were absorbed by black leather couches.
I could pretend I didn’t know what this was, that I didn’t understand, if not for the picture sitting on the mantel.
Two little girls stood hand in hand, feeding the ducks.
It was the picture I’d had on my nightstand for over a decade. I’d left it behind when Lucifer sent assassins . . .
Emotion clogged my throat.
“I can’t accept this,” I said without even thinking the words through.
“It’s not a gift,” he replied.
I blinked. His response somehow pulling me out of the inner panic that was surfacing.
Ronan stepped into the space and the lights in the kitchen turned on instantly, illuminating distressed oak countertops and bronze fixtures. This place would cost a fortune. I knew that without a doubt, and I hadn’t even seen the rest of it.
“I wanted to be closer to you. The place I was living was just one of the many residences I took from the Antares Coven. I wanted somewhere that was my own . . .” He turned and leaned back against the countertop, crossing his arms over his chest. “With you.”
“I don’t know why I didn’t think about this building having another floor,” I said, searching for words that delayed the answer to the unspoken question I knew was coming.
“It wasn’t finished. Señora was using it for storing her more ludicrous items.” He shrugged.
“And she just gave it to you?” I asked, skeptical.
His lips curled around the edges, a slight smirk. “I made her a deal she couldn’t resist.”
Despite the tension that made my muscles bunch and kept my guard on high, I couldn’t deny the snort that escaped me. “Of course you did.”
Ronan stared at me. Deviously, brutally, cruelly beautiful in a way that was truly beyond this world.
He wasn’t pretty in the way Lucifer was. He was darkness. A true demon from the night, brought to life with sensuous flesh wrapped in sin. His eyes were inhuman and terrifying in a way that the devil couldn’t manage. His body larger than any ordinary man. Power oozed from the very pores of his skin, as if his body itself could hardly contain the beast within.
“You don’t have to answer me right now. I know that change is hard for you. But make no mistake, I intend for this place to be ours.” A shiver worked through me.
My tongue felt heavy in my mouth. I struggled for a snappy reply. Something to brush away the feeling edging through my chest.
“You haven’t even shown me the rest of it,” I settled on. The candidness didn’t land when I took too long.
Ronan smiled, somehow easy yet wolfish. He extended a hand to me, striding forward. “Come.”
My legs moved before my mind did. I took his fingers, and they laced between mine, the pricks of my clawed nails brushing against his skin.
“I wasn’t sure what you’d like,” he started as we walked down a short hallway that opened up. Three different doors. Ronan chose the one on the right first.
I knew without a doubt it was our room.
The black satin sheets and king-sized bed screamed Ronan, but they weren’t what captured my attention. The entire back wall had been turned to glass.
My hand slipped from his as I started forward.
“Is it real?” I asked, pressing my fingers to the cold pane. It certainly felt real.
