CHAPTER FOUR

“Dammit, Ma,” Temp muttered, stepping out of her stifling embrace. “How’d you find me?”

“You think you can hide from me?” she grumbled good-naturedly. Her eyes swiveled in my direction as if she’d just noticed me. “Men,” she said conspiratorially, giving me a wink. “Give them an inch, they take a mile. Well, in my son’s case, several thousand miles – considering the last time I saw him was in Italy.”

She hadn’t noticed that I was completely dumbfounded and had barely heard what she’d just said. Temp hadn’t noticed either. I was too puzzled to even think straight.

Her son, I thought, shocked to the core.

Of course, my own mother didn’t recognize me and I hadn’t expected her to. The last time she’d seen me, I was still wetting the bed and wearing pigtails. She, on the other hand, looked the same – which could only mean one horrifying thing: She’d sold her soul to the devil for immortality. In order to be with the demon she loved, I was willing to bet.

I quickly did the math. She’d been thirty-five when she’d left and Temp looked to be in his early twenties. This meant that she’d been pregnant with him when she’d disappeared, which made him roughly twenty-one or so. But did demon halflings age like normal people? Or could they freeze time as they so pleased? My head was spinning with the possibilities and I could feel a migraine coming on.

“Mom,” I breathed, and she looked at me strangely. The word tasted strange in my mouth, like sushi in peanut butter.

“Fed too hard on this one, huh?” she teased Temp, and he patted my back.

“This is Rainelle, Ma,” he said politely, as if introducing his girlfriend to his mother. God, he didn’t know and the idea of what he nearly did to me – wanted to do to me – made me taste bile. “She knows about us. She’s immune.”

“Rainelle?” Her voice became vague, as if she dimly recalled another Rainelle she’d met a long time ago but couldn’t, for the life of her, remember where.

“Lauren Madeline Wilson,” I snapped, anger surging through me. I hadn’t said that name in years.

Lauren Madeline Wilson’s eyebrows shot up to somewhere below her hairline. “Excuse me?”

“I’m Rainelle Erickson, not that you care or remember.” My voice was cool but inside, something shattered with the realization that what I’d just said was probably the truth.

My mother’s eyes dawned with recognition and she took a step away from me, looking me over in disbelief. I could finally see the little things Temp had inherited from her – namely, her coffee-brown eyes and Phoenician nose – and I felt nauseous, so nauseous it hurt. It was one thing to willingly have sex with a demon but to procreate in the process? Despicable.

“What the hell’s going on here?” Temp asked, impatiently tapping my back with his fingertips.

But I was too focused on staring my mother to death. Immortal or not, she was just as susceptible to my death glares as the next person. The only reason I wasn’t throwing myself at her was because the hotel lobby was incredibly crowded.

“Rainelle,” Lauren murmured weakly, “oh, my.”

“Ma?” Temp’s voice was uncertain.

“How could you?” I snarled, all my pent-up bullshit swelling to the fore. “How could you hurt us like that? Did you even love Dad? Me? Or was good sex just too excellent an offer to pass up?”

A passing bellhop gave us a curious glance, no doubt catching the end of my sentence.

My mother’s eyes widened and she had the grace to look embarrassed.

“You two know each other?” Temp asked, his tone impatient.

Lauren nodded, her eyes still locked with mine. “Temp, Rainelle’s your half-sister.”

***

“Well, this is about as awkward as it gets,” Temp remarked, downing his second Budweiser that morning. He set the empty can back on the table, staring at me from beside Lauren.

I stirred my black coffee, unable to take my eyes off my mother. She, on the other hand, was looking everywhere but me. I had missed my flight for this crap and I was anything but happy about spending another second in The Kamenev.

It was a good thing the hotel’s dining area was well-ventilated and filled with sunshine because I was afraid of what I’d do if I ever got these two people – demons – alone in a dark place. Decapitation was at the top of that list.

I turned my attention to Temp. “You were trying to get into my pants. You honestly had no idea that…well, that…this?” I gestured at all three of us.

His face contorted with unmasked disgust. “I might be a sex fiend but incest is not a turn-on,” he said through gritted teeth. “In fact, I might just give up sex altogether and wither away to avoid sleeping with family members I have no inkling about.” He said this last part with his eyes narrowed at Lauren. “Explain yourself. Now, Ma.”

“Actually, I don’t care. I need to get out of here,” I muttered, getting to my feet. “You’re lucky I don’t have the means or opportunity to slash your throat.”

“Sit,” my mother commanded, her chocolate-brown eyes finally meeting mine. “Please.”

I sat.

Minutes of silence rolled by and I waited, my patience quickly waning.

Finally, Lauren began, “I loved Raymond; I really did.” She was caressing her mug of hot chocolate. “But I’m in love with Vitaly. It wasn’t fair to your dad but I couldn’t help it. You can’t help who you fall in love with.”

“Do you hear yourself?” I instantly snapped at her. “In love with a demon? Don’t you understand that you were seduced? Controlled?”

My mother shot me a dirty look. “That’s what I am, too. A demon,” she said, her voice brittle. “And FYI, Rainelle, I can smell Andrei’s essence all over you like a cheap perfume.”

Heat enflamed my cheeks. She could smell his “essence”. Seriously? Could every other demon here smell his “essence”? Could they smell that I’d had sex with one of their kind? Could they all smell who I’d had sex with? I averted my eyes from Lauren, mortified.

“If what Temp says is true – that you can’t be seduced by one of us – then you had sex with Andrei willingly,” she went on, “so forgive me if I refuse to be judged by you.”

“That’s too fucking bad, Mom,” I choked out, “because you ruined my father’s life so I have every right to judge you! You know how he spent his final years? Chasing demons. Chasing them like a madman because of you. One of them killed him.”

Lauren looked away. “That was his prerogative, Rainelle.”

“Bitch,” I roared, leaning forward and gripping the white tablecloth in my hands. I directed all the rage I’d built up over the years at her. I felt it leave my body and get sucked up by hers. “You did that to him. You drove him mental with heartbreak and all you can say to that is that it was his choice? I’m going to fucking kill you!”

“Hey,” Temp said gently, placing a hand on my arm, “calm down.”

I sucked in a deep breath, counting to five before glancing at him. It was perplexing but I felt safe with him. Safe and…calm. It was strange, when his and Lauren’s combined auras were making me woozy and giving me a headache. I also realized that I probably couldn’t kill my mother. Not in public. Probably not ever.

“Rainelle, you have to understand,” Lauren was saying, dragging my attention from Temp.

“Understand what?”

“That I was a bored housewife. My life was going nowhere and I was getting old.”

I couldn’t believe how shallow and selfish she sounded. “You had me. I was six. Six, dammit! I needed you!”

She shook her head. “No. You didn’t. Raymond doted on you.” She paused, taking a delicate sip of her drink. “The first time Vitaly came to visit me, your father had gone to some seminar for a weekend. Vitaly had been in a fight with another demon and needed to heal. He…took me and I –”

“I really don’t need to hear this,” Temp grumbled, “and neither does Rae.” Clearly the story of his parents getting together wasn’t a favorite.

“Fine. But I will say this, Rainelle. I fell in love with Vitaly the second I saw him.” She bit her lower lip. “Your father had told me about his father and his father before that being a hunter. I’d pushed that all out of my mind until…until Vitaly. And then I knew that I wanted to be with him forever. So I…made a deal with Andrei. I sold my soul to Lilith.”

“Andrei? Why him? Why does everything seem to come back to him?” When I’m trying so hard to forget about him, I silently added.

It was Temp who spoke up.

“Because, Rae,” he said, “Andrei’s a demon king. Our king.”

***

Two days later, I was standing in the house I’d grown up in, feeling no nostalgia, only bitter what-ifs. Renée Marino, my best friend in the whole world, was opening all the windows, allowing the earthy sea breeze inside.

I hated coming here.

“Babe, you OK?” she asked, standing in front of me with her hands firm on her round hips. “Is it your last case? Did the guy make trouble?”

I gave Ren a weak smile. Shorter than me by a few inches, even in heels, she’d cut her long jet-black hair into a sleek bob that emphasized her high cheekbones and cat-like green eyes. Today, she was in high-waisted white pants and a turquoise vest, bangles clanging together at her wrists; standard Renée-wear.

She was so clueless. How could I possibly tell her that, after twenty-one years, my mother was alive and kicking and hadn’t aged a day? How could I tell her that I had a sex demon for a baby brother and that I happened to have – repeatedly – fucked some kind of demonic royalty over the weekend?

What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas, I bitterly reflected. I was never going to see any of them anyway – at least that’s what I’d told Temp and my mother to their faces – and I was never going to speak about them.

Lauren had accepted that graciously, probably because she couldn’t care less if she ever saw me again or not. She probably preferred it that way. After sitting through a weird Q&A about what had happened to her – in which she informed me that she did indeed have to feed on humans to survive and that she and Vitaly often enjoyed ménages and orgies as a couple – I’d decided that no amount of chitchat was going to make up for what she’d done to my family. She hadn’t been there for my first period, my breasts growing, my first boyfriend, my prom, my college graduation – nothing. As far as I was concerned, I was an orphan and an only child.

“You seriously don’t want to hang out sometime?” Temp had asked me when I finally gathered up my luggage and tried to hail a cab outside the hotel. I’d been jostled left, right and center for standing in one place too long.

“This is all too much for me, OK?” I’d replied, not meeting his eye. “I need normalcy. You’re not normal.”

“Sure,” he said, his voice forcibly neutral. “Have a nice life.”

For one second, I’d considered the fact that I might be hurting Temp’s feelings – but then rationality kicked in and I told myself demons didn’t have feelings, even halflings.

“I’m good, Ren,” I told my best friend, living in the now. “Just starving.”

“Why didn’t you say so, hon?”

So she drove me over to her house where her husband, Lorenzo, was making his famous lasagna and playing Tupac – at low volume, of course – on the CD player in the kitchen.

“I’m seeing a ghost,” he declared when I stepped into their small but cute kitchen, “because Rae Erickson cannot possibly be standing here in my kitchen, here in little old Tacoma Bay.”

“Very funny,” I muttered, going over to him and throwing my arms around him.

He reeked of cheese and spices and herbs and looked pretty much the same as the last time I’d seen him, which was a while ago: Same cropped black hair, same dancing emerald eyes and same tall, athlete’s build. Barefoot and in a red-and-white flannel shirt and faded blue jeans, he looked relaxed and at home in the kitchen, which was good because Renée couldn’t cook for shit.

“Hey, sweetness,” he said when he pulled back, holding me at arm’s length so he could examine me with critical sea-green eyes. “I need to find you a husband. You’ve lost weight.”

I rolled my eyes at him and Renée laughed. “You’re just not wearing your glasses, handsome.”

“I got contacts now, so shut up. I have a cousin that I think you’d –”

“Hell, no,” I cut in, holding a hand up.

I loved Lorenzo but his entire family was batshit crazy. They were a handsome Italian bunch – originally from Naples – all of the guys blessed with sexy olive skin, curly black hair and bodies chiseled from stone. Half of them were cops and the other half lawyers; Lorenzo the only fire-fighter. I’d been to a few Marino family reunions at the Bay and I’d witnessed firsthand batshit craziness at its finest. Lorenzo’s mom always did admittedly good Adam Sandler and Chris Rock impersonations and his grandfather, Papa Marino, was dating Ukrainian twins only just over half his son’s age.

“Come on, Rae. He’s a cop. You’ll like him,” Lorenzo promised, turning away from me and fixing his attention on the delicious smell coming from the oven. “His name’s Paul.”

“Yeah, babe,” Ren seconded, handing me a glass of chilled red wine. “You’ll like him. In fact, if I wasn’t married to his mediocre cousin, I’d tap that ass.”

“You want a spanking, Renée?” Lorenzo threatened without looking at her. He was busy taking the lasagna out.

“With your hands or a belt?” Renée teased.

“My hands.”

“Bring it, baby. I love it when you punish me.”

“Oh Lord,” I mumbled, sitting myself at the tiny four-piece kitchen table. “Can’t you wait until I leave?”

“Seriously, though,” Renée murmured, plunking down opposite me as her husband moved around the kitchen behind her. “Something’s wrong and I think a relationship – or one-night stand – would help. Paul would be safe.”

I swallowed the remainder of my wine. “I think I’m done with men.”

“Thinking of getting with females, huh?” Lorenzo shot me an adorable grin. “I wouldn’t mind that.”

“Pig,” Ren shot at him.

“You love it.”

My best friend sighed, giving me her full attention. “I’m worried about you, hon.”

“Don’t be,” I said flippantly. “I’m good.”

“I know you too well,” she said sorrowfully, shaking her raven-haired head, “so I know you’re lying.”

Guilt pricked at me but before I could say anything stupid, Lorenzo proudly announced, “Lunch is served, ladies,” and hunger took precedence.

***

I was finally getting my first good night’s sleep when I felt the pressure on the left side of the mattress beside me. Holding my breath, I mentally counted to five.

Deep breaths…deep breaths…deep…

Lips touched the bare skin of my shoulder and, even half-comatose, I knew they were Andrei’s. Trembling, I squeezed my eyes shut, feeling his hands travel the length of my back. Now I was wide awake.

“Get the fuck away from me.”

His hand stilled. I took that opportunity to kick the covers off and slip out of bed, aware that I wasn’t helping my case by being completely naked.

Andrei slowly, gracefully got off my bed and stood, his staggering height intimidating me for a millisecond. His hair was tamed into a low ponytail, his chest was straining in a tight black T and black denims hung low on his hips. In short, he looked like something on the menu of good sex; a menu I wasn’t allowed to look at.

“I’m not your toy,” I spat, grabbing the nightgown that was thrown over the armchair beside my bed. I furiously shrugged it on. “So you can get out. Now.”

His eyes were navy, a navy I was already all too familiar with. “You think you can order me around?”

“I think I know that you don’t need to have sex. I think you’re running on full tank. You don’t need me.”

He cocked his head to one side and I still felt naked. “You’re right. I don’t need it.”

A thought suddenly occurred to me. “How’d you find me anyway?”

He held up one of my ankle bracelets, the one I’d had in my toilet bag in Vegas and hadn’t gotten around to wearing. “I had this,” he said, stepping around the bed and making his way to me. He shoved it into his pockets. “There’s no place you can run where I won’t find you. It’s like a compass.”

I swallowed, more terrified than I was willing to admit. “Should I bow to you? I mean, you are a king. Is that what you do? Get a sex slave every twenty years? Am I the chosen one?”

His brow furrowed. “Who told you?”

I assumed he meant the first part, since I was being sarcastic about the last. “I wasn’t supposed to know?”

“I don’t like mortals knowing my business.”

“Oh, now you believe I’m human?” I snorted, and he grabbed my wrists and pulled me to him.

“I discovered who your mother is,” he replied glibly, his gaze undressing me and his touch scalding. “I also know that your father was a very unsuccessful hunter and I know that you spend your time making thousands of dollars off of jealous housewives.”

“Let me go.” I strained to get away and only ended up pressed against his hard, unyielding body. “I’ll scream.”

His erection strained against my abdomen. I felt myself get wet in answer.

“The things I want to do to you,” he murmured into my ear, his hot breath tickling me. “Despite how much you fight it, you want to fuck me.” He gently sucked on my earlobe, eliciting a low moan from me. “You hate wanting to but you can’t help it.”

Crap, I thought, my knees turning to jelly.

“What do you want, Andrei?” I gasped. I knew my lust, my desire, how I was so damn hot for him was what he fed off. I knew it and yet I couldn’t stop myself. “Tell me and get out.”

“I want my cock inside you.”

“Fuck you. That is not going to happen!” I screeched.

He released a low growl and scooped me up, throwing me over his shoulder. I writhed like a snake, screaming loudly although there was no one anywhere near my house to hear me. It was isolated, just how my dad had wanted it.

Andrei ferried me to my bathroom, pushed aside the shower curtain of the old bathtub, and unceremoniously deposited me into it. I hadn’t had the heart to demolish the house’s original tub and, as a result, it was sitting tap to tap with the new, modern one.

“I’m going to kill you,” I snarled, standing and trying to launch myself at Andrei.

He held me back, simultaneously ripping my shower curtain off the rail. “Quiet.”

“Go to hell!” I spat, and he easily wrenched my gown off, flinging it over his shoulder. “Devil spawn!”

He got into the tub with me and, smoothly overpowering me, grabbed my arms, raising them over my head and binding my wrists to the rail with the shower curtain.

I bit back another scream, shooting him a death glare instead. Straining at the wrists was doing nothing, save for making the curtain dig into my skin. It felt like industrial rope.

Andrei was leaning against the tiled wall, his eyes drinking my naked body in. I was quite aware that my nipples were erect and that my breasts were aching to be caressed and kneaded to satisfaction. Furthermore, much as I tried to ignore the throbbing below my waist, my clit was so swollen it hurt.

I lowered my head, seething. Most of my anger was directed at myself. This kind of lust wasn’t healthy. Lusting after a demon wasn’t healthy. I looked up, scowling at him with my mouth firmly shut.

“You’re going to beg me for it,” Andrei said quietly, straightening up and tugging his T-shirt over his head.

My breath caught. He was playing dirty. Just the sight of his chest was enough to send me into a tailspin of unadulterated desire. I pulled at my restraints, but not to escape this time.

Andrei stood before me and cupped my breasts in his hands. The pads of his thumbs swept across the dusky tips of my nipples. I groaned, meeting Andrei’s darkened eyes.

He lowered his head, capturing an aching nub with his mouth. He suckled on it, his hands sweeping down my sides and meeting at my pulsing apex.

I released a moan, spreading my legs slightly. It was shameless and it was wanton but at that moment, I didn’t give a damn. Andrei’s finger teased my entrance and nudged against my already sensitized clit. It felt like he’d knocked my insides. I moaned, unable to say the words I knew he wanted to hear.

“She says no, but she” – he thrust a long finger deep inside me – “says yes.”

I threw my head back and cried out, rocking against his hand as he slid another finger deep inside me, finger-fucking me until I couldn’t see straight. Another finger slipped in and I swayed on my feet, close to coming. Andrei pulled out before I could so much as blink.

I made a whimper of frustration, my entire body throbbing with the intense need to get off.

“I…” My voice trailed off.

“You what?” Andrei growled, cupping my face.

I jerked my head away. “No.” Begging just wasn’t my style.

“Very well,” he said in a low voice, and sank to his knees before me.

The sight of such a huge man kneeling before me – in a bath tub, no less – was such a turn-on, I thought I’d explode there and then. But he grabbed my thighs, angled his head and replaced his fingers with his tongue. He tortured my clit, the engorged bud of sensitive tissue weak in the face of such assault. I thrashed like a fish out of water, the shower curtain biting into my wrists, and screamed from the agonizing pleasure.

Andrei held me steady, his tongue flickering in and out of me, igniting a match somewhere inside my body. I pressed my opening into his face, wishing he could shove his whole face inside me and make me come just…like…that...

My orgasm was surging forward, building up inside me and threatening to turn me into jelly – and then Andrei pulled away.

I made an unintelligible protest, my knees practically giving way.

“Beg for it,” he ordered, looking up at me. My juices were glistening on his lips and I groaned in frustration at the hot image he presented.

Beg. He was probably used to people begging from him. He was a king, after all.

Well, I had pride. I had never been bullied into doing anything in my entire life and I wasn’t about to start now with him.

“My arms hurt,” I said, my voice hoarse. Not to mention the fact that the iron rail was uncomfortably pressing against my wrist bones.

Andrei rose, his brows knitting together. “You’re stubborn.”

“I thought I pissed you off,” I said through clenched teeth, looking up at him defiantly. “Why do you still want me? You said you wouldn’t –”

His mouth was on mine and the rest of my sentence was cut off. His tongue dueled with mine, ever forceful. I moaned, his searching tongue enough to make me come. I shuddered, eyes shut, and could feel my juices trickling down my inner thighs, yet I wasn’t satisfied. Not even close.

My eyes opened in time to watch Andrei’s jeans come off and, as usual, he came with protection. Now that I knew that demons could have offspring with humans, I was doubly grateful.

A minute later, he wrapped my legs around his waist and his big, hard cock was deliciously midway inside me, rubbing against my clit. One arm was below my ass and the other was around my lower back. He was completely supporting me, which was good because my legs were quickly becoming boneless.

He thrust into me to the root, bouncing me on the thick length his cock, and I felt heat engulf my body as he filled me up so completely. With each new thrust, I was coming undone, falling apart. I screamed his name, I begged him not to stop, I told him I loved what he did to me – I came.

Andrei thrust, withdrew, thrust, withdrew and he held onto me tightly when he finally exploded, his body tensing before he spilled his cum into the condom. I tightened myself around him, milking him dry and driving myself half-mental when he erupted inside me again.

He searched for my mouth and I willingly gave it to him, allowing his tongue entry. Still buried inside me, he raised a hand to undo my restraints and I gratefully looped my arms around his neck as he stepped out of the tub.

He walked me back to my bedroom and set me down on the bed, moving out of me.

I felt a frisson of electricity shoot through me when he gently pushed my hair out of my face.

“I can be so good to you,” he said quietly, his hands traveling lower, to my collar bone, “yet you make me take you as if it’s against your will.”

I mewled when his knuckles skimmed my breasts.

“Any time I want you, Rainelle, I will have you,” he whispered, tweaking my nipples between deft fingers. “You with me?”

I shut my eyes, biting my lower lip.

“You with me?” he repeated, elongating the hard nubs with his fingers.

I gasped, my eyes flying opening. Heat pooled in my abdomen and I felt that I was ready for him again.

“No,” I whispered, and I dragged my ass up my bed and sat up, hugging myself. “I don’t want this. I don’t want you. And if you think for a second that I’m going to lie down and allow you to…to have me, you have another think coming, Your Majesty!” I was breathing heavily, both out of breath and scared shitless by the look Andrei was currently giving me.

He stood up, closing his eyes. In the blink of an eye, he was dressed. I stifled a panicked breath. Would I ever get used to that? I had never been a fan of magicians.

“What you don’t seem to understand,” he began, “is that for the first time in millennia, I’m not fucking because I have to. I’m fucking because I want to.” He edged onto my bed, keeping his eyes on me. “Sex with mortals is infinitely better than sex with another demon. You, Rainelle, have hunter’s blood in you. There are no records of a hunter fucking a demon…until now.” He spread my legs apart and pulled me onto his lap so I was straddling him. “As long as you do what I say,” he said, bringing my hand to the front of his jeans, “you don’t have to be afraid of me.”

“I’m not afraid of you.”

“Good,” he said, grabbing the back of my neck and pulling me into a kiss.

I kissed him back, automatically rubbing my clit against the impressive denim-covered bulge in his pants. My hands cupped the sides of his face as we became more frantic and my chafing against him quickened.

Andrei was the first to pull away. “Get some sleep.”

“You’re…going?”

He gave me a wry smile. “You want me to stay?”

“No,” I said fervently. “Get out.”

Andrei’s lips curled. “Tomorrow night, you’ll suck my cock.”

I looked away, unable to hide how much the prospect aroused me. “You won’t find me tomorrow.”

“You are mine now, Rainelle. I will always find you.”