Base Instincts (10 page)

Raze jerked his gaze back to Slake. “How do you know that?”

“My people make weapons for species of demons you probably have never heard of. One or two speak ancient Lydian, and they always demand that certain symbols be carved into the weapons they commission.” Slake pulled his hand away, but the symbol kept pulsing pleasantly. “So? Are you an accepting person?”

Raze almost said yes. But would it be the truth? He’d accepted the fact that he would never be a normal Sem. He’d never be attracted to females, and he could never be with a male the way he wanted.

But that didn’t mean he liked it. And the more time he spent with Slake, the less accepting of his situation he was becoming.

Slake and Raze lay in silence for a long time, long enough that Slake finally realized he wasn’t going to get an answer to his question. He wanted to ask more about Raze’s relationship with the succubus, partly to gain any information that would help him complete his assignment for Dire & Dyre. But it surprised him to realize that most of his curiosity had more to do with wanting to know how Raze would be affected by losing Fayle.

It sounded like Raze truly needed her. For his life. For his sanity.

Fuck.

Slake shouldn’t care. He shouldn’t. After being rejected for who he was by his family and the one male he’d loved, a male he’d had been weak enough to let back into his life three fucking times, he should have been immune to tender feelings.

But here he was, impressed by Raze’s medical skills and in awe of his ability to care for complete strangers, let alone a succubus who was too jealous to let him be happy.

Slake definitely needed to shift the subject to something less . . . Fayle.

“Raze?”

Raze’s response was a sleepy grunt.

“I’m guessing I was onto something at the hospital when I asked if your buddies know the truth about you?”

Swallowing, Raze kept looking at the ceiling, clearly reluctant to go there.

“You don’t have to answer,” Slake said, but Raze shook his head.

“Nah, it’s okay. It’s just weird to talk about it.” He crossed his legs at the ankles, and the sheet lying over his hips shifted, revealing a glorious hint of that firm length Slake had loved with his mouth. “They don’t know. I don’t think they’d be assholes about it, but I couldn’t deal with the pity, you know?”

Slake reached out and traced a swirly glyph on Raze’s arm as it rested across his washboard abs, loving how the dark lines seemed to vibrate at his touch. “Pity that you’re gay, or pity that you can’t be with males the way you want to be?”

“The latter. Probably.” He jerked his arm out from under Slake’s touch and jammed his hand through his hair. Slake experienced an odd twinge of hurt at the abrupt withdrawal, and it pissed him off. He wasn’t ready to let anyone get into his heart enough to hurt him. “Fuck. I don’t know.” He gave Slake a sidelong glance. “What about you? I’ve never even heard of your species. Are you considered . . . normal?”

Slake barked out a bitter laugh and settled against the pillows. “Not by a long shot.” He clenched his fists as if he could fight back against the bastards in his community—in his own
family
—who had not only rejected him, but who had called for his execution. “They accepted me until I turned into something they couldn’t understand: a male who was attracted to other males.”

The worst part about it was that he’d actually tried to change. And as long as he faked finding females desirable, his family was okay with it. Because yep, lying about who you were was okay, but being honest . . . well, that’d get you dead.

“I guess I was lucky,” Raze said, a hint of an impish smile on his perfect lips. “My family only had to accept that I was a demon.”

Slake laughed. “I guess being gay would be the least of your parents’ concerns.”

“They never knew, but they wouldn’t have cared. They loved me no matter what.”

Something inside Slake ached for that kind of acceptance, and for a brief moment, he was tempted to tell Raze the whole story, the truth about what he used to be before he was a male who wanted other males. Would Raze understand the choice he’d made?

Gunther hadn’t understood, and Slake had never gotten over the rejection. Oh, Gunther popped back into Slake’s life every decade or so, begging for forgiveness, insisting that this time, it would be different. This time, he could love Slake for who he was on the outside
and
the inside.

It was bullshit. It was
always
bullshit.

But Raze . . . he seemed different. Open-minded. Compassionate. Patient. Hell, the guy put up with Fayle, and as far as Slake could tell, the wench was a controlling, intolerant user. The fact that Slake had gone through a life-changing transformation shouldn’t be an issue.

Should it?

Inhaling deeply, as if doing so would infuse him with courage, he decided to go for it. If Raze hated him, taking Fayle to Dire & Dyre would be that much simpler. If Raze didn’t hate him . . . well, he’d have some serious thinking to do.

“Ah . . . Raze?”

When Raze didn’t reply, Slake looked over, only to find the guy sound asleep, and damn, he was adorable like that. He was so peaceful, his handsome face relaxed, as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

Slake wasn’t going to ruin that. Soon enough, Raze would wake, remember that Fayle was a bitch who wouldn’t let him have a relationship, and that his friends had died in a horrible explosion.

It was time for Slake to go anyway, and maybe this was the universe’s way of telling him that he shouldn’t get more involved. Shouldn’t reveal secrets best left buried.

Quietly, he showered and dressed . . . and Raze didn’t move a muscle. Clearly, he was secure in his sense of safety, something Slake had never known. He always slept with one eye open and a hand on a weapon.

Even when he and Raze had fucked, he’d always known exactly where each of his weapons was and how fast he could get to them.

Feeling only slightly intrusive, he went through Raze’s pants in search of his cell phone. Once he found it, he plugged in his own number and then typed out a note on the screen. Nothing special, just a simple,
Call Me.

As he stuffed the phone back into the pocket where he’d found it, he hesitated. He was going to have to grab Fayle at some point, and that wasn’t going to go well. Sure, he could do it so Raze would never know he was involved, but damn it, now that Slake knew how badly Raze needed her, he actually felt pricked by a shard of guilt.

Suck it the fuck up. Your damned
soul
is on the line.

And Raze’s life might be on the line.

Cursing himself and his situation, he slipped out of the bedroom and stepped into the kitchen where, lo and behold, Fayle was sitting at the dining room table, idly stirring creamer into a cup of tea. She wore a blazingly bright tie-dyed tank top, but the glare she gave him was all black.

“Sneaking out?” she asked. And rather bitchily, he might add.

“I left a note and my number.”

“Hmm.” She locked her gaze with his. “I don’t expect to see you again.”

Oh, she’d be seeing him again. Soon. If he hadn’t used the rope he’d procured specifically for apprehending her, he could take her right now.

The guilt pricked him again, but instead of dwelling on it, he moved toward her, slowly, gauging her reaction. Aside from a slight tightening in her jaw, she was as cool as the frost on an ice viper’s belly.

“I don’t expect you to have any say in that.”

A sinister smile ruffled the corners of her mouth. “I won’t let anyone hurt him.”

“From what I can tell, you won’t let anyone near enough for that to happen.”

She stirred her tea faster, the spoon clinking angrily against the side of the cup. “He can’t be with males, so it’s pointless for him to try.”

“Seems to me that you’re the one hurting him if you can’t even give him the chance for compromise.”

She bolted from her chair to face him, but some of her fury was lost in their two feet of height difference. “You know nothing about me or him, you effing piece of offal.” She pointed to the door. “You got what you wanted from him. Now go find someone else to screw.”

“
Effing
? Screw? Seriously? You can’t bring out the spicy language to go with your insult? That’s like serving tacos without hot sauce. Or throwing a Super Bowl party without alcohol. Fucking criminal.”

“I don’t like to cuss,” she ground out.

Well, now, that was unexpected. Demons tended to be pretty liberal with what humans considered coarse language. “I don’t trust people who don’t cuss.”

“Why not?”

“Because people who don’t cuss are silently judging you. Pulling a morally superior act, but it’s just an act. You know they’re thinking bad shit; they just won’t say it.”

“Maybe they’re being polite.”

“Or maybe they’re not being sincere.”

She sneered. “Fuck you.”

“See? That’s sincere.” He brushed past her and headed to the front door. Before he left, he couldn’t resist adding, “Tell Raze I’ll see him later.”

I’ll see you too, Fayle.

Oh, damn
. . . I’m going to come . . .

The words fell from Raze’s lips in an incoherent rush as the orgasm took him. Slake’s mouth was magic, sucking and licking, taking everything Raze had to give. As the climax waned, another slammed into him, followed by another, and another. Slake’s hand dropped to knead Raze’s balls with light pressure, coaxing every last drop and every last shiver of sensation from him.

Fuck, the guy was incredible. As the heady glow of really great sex warmed him, he became vaguely aware of a tingle of pulsing energy flowing through his
dermoire
, and he had the strangest desire to flip Slake over, lock hands and bodies, and . . . and what? Bond with him?

Male Seminus demons couldn’t bond with other males. They could only take females to be their mates. So why the hell was his body reacting to—

A metallic clank made him jump. Another clank, this time accompanied by a hard, cold
snap
and pressure around his ankle, got his eyes open and the sexual fog cleared.

“Slake,” he rasped. “What are you . . .” He blinked at the sight of Fayle straddling his thighs. Her glistening lips and his wet dick lying half-erect on his belly made it clear that he’d orgasmed, all right, but not with Slake.

“You were asleep for nearly fourteen hours,” she said, and was it his sleep-soaked ears, or did she sound . . . sad? “I took care of you before—”

“Before we had a repeat of the other night?”

Her brows shot up in surprise at the challenge in his question. Hell, even he’d surprised himself. He was usually one to let things go in order to maintain the status quo, but something had changed, and he was no longer content with the way he and Fayle had been living.

No, not living.
Surviving
.

“She’s keeping you from being happy.”

Slake’s words filled his ears as if he was still lying right there beside him, and wasn’t it funny how, after knowing Raze for such a short time, he’d distilled his life with Fayle down to a single sentence.