Chapter 5

I gasped. 

Luc leaned back, but his hot gaze never moved from mine. His eyes glittered like jewels and were filled with something both dark and possessive. But I knew he was still holding himself back because I wasn’t transforming. When Luc was ready, I would no longer look like me. 

Fear slammed through me like a fist to the gut.

My pulse thrummed violently; fear laced my nerve endings. Only once before have I seen him this wild—and when it’d happened, I’d nearly died. 

Now Luc wasn’t just having sex; he was marking me. I was scared. Lust was not. She roared to life, her desire pouring through me with the swiftness of wildfire. 

Luc grabbed my thigh, pinning my leg to his waist. His eyes swirled. The purple and silver crashed and rolled like a turbulent sea. My scalp prickled. 

Have you ever been outside during an electrical storm? Ever smelled that metallic scent of ozone and felt the raw shiver of air charged with millions of volts of pure power? 

Well, Luc’s power felt like that. And that is not good. It meant he was losing control to the demon. 

All the fine hairs on my body stood on end. I tried to look away, but he grabbed my chin.

“No,” he growled, sharing his voice with another. 

He ripped my skirt from top to bottom, not giving me time to shift. He yanked, and when he did, the last of his self-control vanished. 

My muscles tensed. This was gonna hurt.

His power fell on me with the force of a tsunami. My bones shifted. My skin stretched and pulled. Blond hair tore through my head like hypodermic needles pushing from the inside out. 

I screamed, bucked beneath him, and clawed at his chest.

He swallowed my screams with his lips. I heard whispers but couldn’t make them out. I writhed, heaving for air that didn’t burn.

Hands were on my face, eyes that were no longer so purple held my own. Words that had seemed jumbled now began to make sense. “Breathe, breathe… breathe. I’m sorry, Pandora. So sorry.”

I blinked, his beautiful tanned face coming back into focus—the blackness in my skull washing slowly away. 

“Pandora.” His voice shook. My name felt like a plea to understand he’d been lost and not to judge him for it.

I took a deep breath and tried to focus, counting slowly to five before I trusted myself to speak. “Ssh.” I laid my finger to his lips, not willing to let him shoulder the weight of any more guilt. “I’m okay now.”

His lashes fluttered, and his body covered mine. He wasn’t moving, just holding me like one would a treasure. Cradling me in his strong arms, his face turned from mine as if he was afraid of seeing recrimination in my eyes.

Something thick and wet and warm pressed against my chest, and I knew if I looked that I’d see I had sliced him deep and that wetness was his blood. I licked my lips; my body still felt battered from the rush of that violent and swift change. Normally it didn’t hurt, but normally Luc was much more in control of himself then he’d been tonight.

I hurt everywhere. I needed this sex now more than ever. No way could I hope to get any type of rest with not only the beating Billy had put me through, but now this change. Human Pandora didn’t want sex; demon Pandora did. 

Demon won out.

Gently I sifted my fingers through Luc’s shoulder-length blond hair, massaging his head with circular strokes until the tension eased from his body.

I should be scared, but I sensed his fear of hurting me again would help keep him in check this time around.

“Luc,” I whispered. “Kiss me.”

He groaned, still not looking at me. “How can you ask me that? How can you still trust me after what I just did?”

I didn’t stop the massage, which seemed to help, because he shifted and looked at me with that familiar blue gaze. There was such need, such emotion. I wasn’t used to this. Luc was steadfast, his emotions never betraying how he truly felt. Frostbitten, I liked to call him. 

He moved, wrapping his arms around my shoulders and holding me as close as could be without slipping into my skin. And yes, the act is possible given proper conditions. 

“You were hurt… and I lost my head.” He shuddered.

You might think it’s crazy, but Luc and I have never had a heart-to-heart. We were sexual partners, and we’d risked our bodies for the other on more than one occasion, but we never shared. 

Well, let me rephrase that. 

He’d never shared.

I had tried once many years ago. He’d stopped me, told me that talk like that could get a Neph killed. I had to bury it, speak of it to one, not even to the night’s breeze. Everything had ears. Danger was everywhere. This was a dog-eat-dog world. Show any weakness and your enemy could, and would, exploit it. I hadn’t listened and paid the price.

He didn’t seem to want to say more, and honestly, I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear more. All I wanted from Luc in this moment was his body pressed to mine.

I ran my finger up his spine, beginning to feel more myself with each minute that ticked past. And as the pain slipped away, desire began to slowly take its place. 

 The feel of him pressed against my thigh made me more wet. He wasn’t as hard as he’d been since we started talking, a problem I rectified immediately. I shifted, my knee grazing that piece of velvet.

He groaned, and I smiled.

I grabbed his face, turning him to me, and nipped his chin.

His nostrils flared and his body stirred.

Luc grabbed my breasts, giving the nipples a tight squeeze. “Are you sure?” Desire was riding him, but so was that thread of uncertainty.

I wrapped my legs around his waist, opening myself, forcing his solid thickness against my wet core, and pressed into him. He hissed. “Answer enough?”

With a possessive growl, he slipped inside, pumping up and down. Moving in long, sure strokes.

I gasped. I could feel the magick of our joining run like a heady intoxicant through my veins. It was fire and ice. It burned, but it felt so good. He sat up, still joined to me but freeing his hands. 

I got my first good look at his chest and cried out at the angry lacerations of his shredded flesh. 

“Oh, Luc,” I whispered, the apology heavy on my tongue. 

He reached between our bodies, his thumb finding my center, and he rubbed it while keeping up the pounding rhythm of sweat-slicked, slapping skin.

I forgot everything but the pleasure of his touch after that. I closed my eyes and pumped him harder. My head thrashed from side to side as the climax built. Blood rushed through my heart, chest, head until I felt that I’d burst from it.

My own power rushed back. It filled me, kissed my temple, my shoulder. The skin grew warm, and it felt like gentle fingers piecing me back together. 

“Open your eyes, Pandora.” Luc’s voice was strong, but not savage. He was himself.

I opened my eyes and watched him watching me. There was something erotic and very intimate about that. About seeing a man’s body flex and pump against you.

Then it came. That blinding, ripping orgasm that steals all the breath from your lungs so that all you can do is scream into the black void of nothingness and hope you can find your way back to sanity.

After several seconds of labored breathing, I opened my eyes and returned his smile. The cuts on his chest were gone. I touched my shoulder, and it was smooth, perfect again. 

Luc stared at me for a second. It was thoughtful, full of hidden meaning. He traced the curve of my jaw. Then he blinked, and his eyes were again shuttered, impersonal, distant.

He stood. “Let me go clean myself. I’ll be back, and then we’ll talk.”

I watched him walk from my room, his exquisite rear flexing with each step, and I bit my lip. My body was sated. I wasn’t horny. But when a man’s that easy on the eyes, it’s a shame not to appreciate it.

I rolled over, feeling like a contented kitten, and grinned, stretching lazily before I too got up to walk into the bathroom and freshen up. I opened my dresser drawer, got out the first underwear I found—a black and purple see-through thong—and slipped it on.

What girl doesn’t like a piece of dental floss riding her cheeks, right? My one fatal flaw was that I never bought clothing for comfort.

There are only two undergarments I ever buy. I have no use for bras. My breasts are an average B-cup size and as perky as an eighteen-year-old’s. Some women don’t like the feel or look of bouncing tits. Men do. Simple as that. 

My dresser had six drawers. Three were stuffed with my sexy-as-sin underwear collection and the others with socks. 

I don’t know why, but my toes always freeze. Seriously. I can handle any type of weather. Cold can never be cold enough, and heat, no matter how hot, will barely break me out into a sweat. But my feet can never seem to stay warm. 

I grabbed a pair of black-and-white-striped, knee-high toe socks and put them on. I was crawling back into bed when Luc returned. 

He wore a pair of black satin sleep pants and nothing else, one of the many he had tucked around here. He carried a plate with two sandwiches on it in one hand, and a glass of red wine in the other. 

We didn’t live together. That would give the illusion of domesticity, and whatever you might think about the Neph, domestic we are not. 

Though he was here often enough that it was convenient to give him his own drawer.

He sat down next to me, handed me one sandwich, and kept the other. I took the glass of wine and set it on the end table. 

I nibbled on the bread, but I wasn’t that hungry. I’m not sure what it was about Luc. For some people, an after-sex ciggy was an absolute must; for Luc, it was food. 

He took several bites, staring straight ahead at the wall. I lifted my brow but didn’t say a word. I lifted the slice of white bread and stared at the pinkish-brown nest of roast beef, the odor reminding me of the chunks I’d left in the toilet bowl earlier. 

My stomach somersaulted at the reminder. I wrinkled my nose, groaned, and set the sandwich aside, grabbing the wine instead.

After several more seconds of contemplative silence, Luc finally turned to me and frowned. 

“How did a priest of death find us, Pandora?”

I crossed my legs at the ankle and leaned back against the headboard. My heart thudded fast, picturing Billy as I’d last seen him. I had nothing to offer on that subject. I was as confused as Luc. I shrugged, taking a drink of the red wine. It was cool, spicy, and a sweet balm to the burn in my stomach. 

“What did he do to you?”

I recounted everything to the point where Billy had found me, then I paused. It had been nagging at me for some time, but I finally voiced my thoughts. “You know, Billy aside—”

Luc raised his brow. “Billy?” There was a chilly edge to his voice. 

“Huh?” I raised my eyes from the glass of wine to him, not sure why he sounded so peeved and bristly. I waved it aside. “Priest, whatever. Aside from all that… what was a vampire doing here tonight?”

He watched me for another tense moment, and again I wondered what was wrong with him. He was acting all weird and moody, and I didn’t like it. Finally he blew out a deep breath, as if attempting to gather his thoughts. 

“Bubba and I wondered the same thing,” he said, sounding almost normal again. But there was still a betraying hint of anger quivering behind those words.

I sipped on my wine, mulling it over. There was an unspoken hatred between all things parasite—our all-encompassing way of grouping by name those things not quite human—and Neph. 

To understand why, you’d have to go way back in history. History bores me. I lived through it, so I rarely feel the need to revisit it. Let’s put it this way… what you think you know, you don’t. A vampire is not some blood-sucking fiend who can bite someone, exchange blood, and create more baby vampies.

That’s a romanticized version of the ugly truth. But there is always some truth in myth. And I guess to understand the paras, you first have to understand their creators. 

Here’s the shorthand account of what’s what in monster society. Everything starts with us, the demons. One day a group of angels in the heavens saw the daughters of man. They lusted after them. They mated. Some were raped, some were willing, but in the end children were born from the unions. The Nephilim. My people.

As punishment for their crimes, the angels were cast out of heaven. Once on earth, their names were changed to demon.

The Father was so incensed by the depravation of his creation that he had them chained and thrown into the fiery pit. AKA Hell. 

Though the demons had been cast out, they were plenty powerful in their own right. Even chained, they still wished to rule earth by Lucifer’s side—aka Satan—so they created minions, or another name for them, lower-caste demons—LCD for short—much the same way God created Eve from Adam. 

The LCDs are a little like us Neph. We all have the same patriarchal lineage. But unlike us, the LCDs have no humanity within them to battle the inherent evil that is a demon’s nature. They are pure bad and mindless little lackeys for their masters. 

And now we’re back to where we started, the paras. In one form or another, they are all the creation of the fallen ones that mortals petitioned power for.

Who knows why the humans make the deal? Whatever the case might be, there is always a price to pay.

Loss of will. 

A demon cannot force you to sign on the proverbial dotted line. But once you do, there’s no going back.

It is with the LCDs that the humans make the trade, their human souls for earthly power.

Demons require total and absolute allegiance. You are no longer your own. Remember that song: signed, sealed, delivered, I’m yours? Yeah, something like that. 

It’s the ultimate irony, really. People crave power and total domination, and what they wind up becoming is whipping posts for the homicidal, masochistic, sadistic perversions of a demon’s will. 

So next time you think about dancing with the Devil…  just an FYI, I wouldn’t. Can’t say I didn’t warn ya.

Anyway, you become what you crave. That’s the stripped-down, simplified version of it.

You want beauty, wealth…  The demon turns you vamp. You want power…  shifter. Long life…  zombie. 

But of course it’s never what you expect. Vampires aren’t immortal. They drink blood, but their canines aren’t much longer than a house cat’s. More often than not, you’ll see a vamp feeding with a syringe or razor. They live long lives compared to mortals. Two, three hundred years, but they age. Slower than normal, but still age, nonetheless. They’re strong, but nothing like us. 

In short vamps, have everything to fear from us, and we have very little to fear from them. Which is why they usually make themselves scarce when we’re around.