Darkest Before Dawn (19 page)

“Akil–” Desperation clipped my voice. I was about to break, and he knew it.

He lunged in and captured my mouth with his. That tiny part of me that knew this was wrong faded into the background, smothered beneath a roaring need to have him chase away the horrors stalking my thoughts. I laced my fingers into his hair and pulled him into the ravaging kiss. I attacked him as though starved. His lips burned, his teeth nipped, and his tongue swirled. This couldn’t happen. In seconds, he’d try to dive inside me to dislodge the dark parasite coiled around my insides. He’d rip out my cancerous parasite and take my humanity with it. I couldn’t let him do that. This wasn’t right. So why wasn’t I pushing him away? If I told him to stop—really told him—he would. Why wasn’t I saying the words? That damned demon lust was too fresh. Too real. Was it her, or was it me? What was the point in fighting my nature? Lust was in my veins, part of my DNA. My demon father was the Prince of Lust. My humanity only went halfway, and my demon had hold of me like never before. She pushed at my control, leaning into my restraint. She had the scent of freedom now and refused to yield.

I broke the maddening kiss, breathless and trembling, and dropped my head back, closing my eyes. “I can’t.” He trailed scorching kisses across my jawline, fluttering them down the curve of my neck. His hand eased under my top, slid around my waist and clamped against my lower back. He tugged me against him with an animalistic groan and pulled me close. His naked body smothered mine. Even as I knew it was wrong, I melted against him with a shuddering moan.

“Akil...” I closed my eyes, not wanting to see the delicious plain of his chest or the way his arms tensed, muscles tightening. I could feel him though, the heated strength of him, the hardness of his body against the softness of mine. Nerves fluttered low, shortening my breath. “You suffocate me.”

“Stop thinking and feel. Let me love you.”

Finally, a bolt of anger fired through me, driving back the smothering desire. I shoved, half mad with lust. He leaned back, giving me space to breathe again. “Love?” I snarled. The wicked play of firelight in his eyes pooled wet warmth between my legs. He licked his lips and pinned me in a predatory glare, making it quite clear he had every intention of devouring me once the foreplay was over. What did he know about love? “I can’t do this, Akil. Don’t do this to me. You know my demon wants you. Don’t tempt me like this. I’m not in my right mind. I’m losing control—”

His fingers speared into my hair, locking his palms against my cheeks, forcing me to glare into his eyes. “Stop lying to yourself. This isn’t your demon’s doing, and you know it. Let me make love to you. Permit me this.” He molded his body against mine, driving the hardness of his erection against my hip. “Not as demon,” he whispered. “No element. No power. Just as a man.” His lips brushed mine. His breathless whispers sawed, rough with hunger. “I need to feel you as a man does a woman. You have no idea what it costs me to say these things to you. You cannot fathom what it means. I need you. I lay the truth before you. Would you turn me away? Right here and now, Muse, I am but a man.”

My fragile heart stuttered. Tears welled in my eyes. His words burned like nothing else could. How did he know how to break me so completely? How could he know what I needed? I didn’t want him a demon. But as a man? When his lips met mine again, he teased and explored with reverent hesitation. He eased my jacket from my shoulders, the heat of his touch seeping through my clothes to sizzle against my sensitive skin. This was my last chance to pull away, and the decision was mine. I couldn’t deny what I felt for him. I wanted him, both halves of me wanted to hide from the world inside Akil’s embrace. I could forget the hideous thing crippling my soul, forget the sins hooked into my conscience, forget how everything I touched turned to ash.

I rode my hands over the silken hardness of his chest, skipped my fingers over his shoulders and captured his face. “Damn you, Akil.” Drilling my gaze into his, I was already lost. I fell into his kiss, locked my arms around his neck, and dragged him down. My demon purred her approval. Otherworldly heat sizzled beneath my skin, and where Akil’s hands explored, desire sparked.

He gathered me in his arms. A flash of static energy sprinkled my flesh, and in the next moment, we were in the bedroom. I registered the dark wood and opulent furnishings in my peripheral vision before Akil’s growl hooked into my wandering thoughts and drew me back to him. He backed me up to the bed, fingers teasing up my thighs, sinking beneath the hem of my skirt and riding higher. I dragged my nails down his back, smiling against his mouth as he tensed and bowed me against him. His power had gone, his element snuffed out. I touched his fevered flesh and felt only the trembling of a man in the throes of desire.

I pulled him down and whispered against his neck, “I’m not the same woman you screwed over, Akil. The woman you tried to force my demon from, she’s long gone. Do you believe you can tame me?”

“No.” His gruff reply was more growl than word, but I heard it clearly enough.

I shoved him back a few feet and watched with perverse delight how his body revealed his need to have me beneath him. Jesus, he couldn’t be real. He was too damned delicious to be real. In the low light, his primal masculinity stole all that remained of reason from my mind. I slid my tongue across my lips. He tracked the tiny movement. Removing my clothes, deliberately taking my time, I basked under the heat of his gaze as it roamed and devoured. He trembled by the time I kicked my boots off and stood before him in all my human nakedness. There was a time he’d despised my humanity, wanted only my demon, but there was no sign of that now.

He stalked toward me, gathered me in his arms, and claimed me with a kiss. Arching against him, I threw my head back. His skillful tongue swirled down my neck. I was lost to lust, buried too deep in the madness to care about anything but Akil. Swirling his tongue around a nipple, he licked and teased, spurring my lust higher. He hitched my thigh around his hip, his fingers digging into my flesh before diving into the wetness of my core, stirring my needs into frenzy. Inhuman growls escaped me. I bucked against him, needing him inside. His dark laughter ratcheted my madness higher.

I speared my hands into his hair and snarled a warning. “Stop playing games.”

His soft hazel eyes glistened with unspoken promises. His smile spoke of the wicked things his mind had conjured. He cupped my behind and lifted me against him before lowering me onto the bed. He prowled up my body, timeless wisdom burning in his eyes, but no power. His eyes had never been more honest. With the fire gone, he was just a man. I peered up at him through half-closed lashes, drenched with need. As Akil towered over me, the vision of male perfection, ageless, netherworldy, I saw a weakness in him I’d never witnessed before: a knowledge in his eyes coupled with a fraction of regret, not for me, but for himself. He noticed my expression change, but before I could voice what I thought I’d seen, he nudged my knees apart and plunged into me, arching my back and stealing a ragged groan of ecstasy from the depths of my ruined soul.

I
woke entwined
in Akil’s arms, captured against the unyielding strength of his body. Sunlight streamed in through the wall of windows. Akil’s steady breath betrayed him as awake, as did the press of his erection against my leg. I purred and stretched beneath the sheets, deliciously languid and broken. Peeling open heavy eyelids, I stilled. Akil’s glare brought an abrupt end to my dreamy post-sex state. He stared down at me, head propped on his hand, face stern and eyes cold.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“The Prince of Envy is dead. By your hand.”

“How do you know that?”

He tapped his temple. “I hear them, my brethren. Their reach rarely extends beyond the veil, but the death of one of their own has them grieving. Their voices are distracting. It is part of the reason I spend my time here, away from their whispers.” So he had Prince FM playing in his head. It didn’t escape my attention how he’d referred to the princes as them not
we
. He didn’t include himself among them. Why? “They are furious,” he added with a scowl.

“What makes you think I killed him?”

The corner of his lips—lips I’d nipped and teased last night—curled up. “Because I know you. When I last saw both you and Levi, he’d trapped you in a cage. Once Stefan’s ice thawed, Levi was quite adamant he would draw you out, using Dawn as bait. Your apparent-death didn’t change his plans for the half blood girl. He was a fool, blinded by prejudice and thankfully quite ignorant of the power of half bloods. Are you going to deny your involvement in his demise? I’d like to listen to you try.”

I quickly darted my gaze away and dropped my head back on the pillow. If he looked into my eyes, he’d see the lie. “Yeah, that was me.”

“How?”

“It doesn’t matter—”

He gripped my jaw and tried to pull me to face him, but I growled and jerked my chin free.

Muttering a demon curse, Akil rose from the bed. “Your timing is somewhat imprudent.” Liquid sunlight flowed over the smooth skin of his back. I propped my head up, brazenly admiring how his muscles flexed and rolled.

I could still taste him on my lips, still feel the throb of his touch on my skin. “Levi deserved it. He had Dawn in a cage. He’d toyed with her like she was worthless.” My voice fractured, prompting me to clear my throat. I’d been a demon plaything. Memories bubbled but didn’t surface.

He turned to face me, his expression a hard mask of disapproval. I arched an eyebrow and allowed the sight of his nakedness to fend off the reality I’d been trying to hard to forget. I didn’t take much effort to recall where on his body I’d teased my tongue, or dragged my nails down his honeyed skin. “Don’t go.”

Even as I said the words, he flicked his wrist and clothed himself in tailored suit and amethyst colored shirt. “You don’t kill a Prince of Hell and walk away, Muse.”

I sighed, mourning the loss of his body. “That’s exactly what I did.” Flinging the sheet back, I trailed a fingernail down the valley of my waist to crest my hip. His gaze wandered before he remembered himself and shot me a scowl. “Oh, c’mon.” I scoffed. “They call me the Mother of Destruction. I was living up to expectations.”

His eyes narrowed. “The Mother of Destruction? Who told you that?”

“Levi. Right before I kicked his not-so-immortal ass into the underworld.”

Akil snaked his arms crossed. A muscle jumped in his jaw as he ground his teeth. “You have no idea what you’ve done.” Ah, but his lips fought a smile. “You killed a member of the Dark Court. A member of the Court hasn’t fallen for a millennium. Not since the Queen...” His eyes glazed over for a few seconds. He shook his head and focused on me. “They aren’t going to let this go unpunished, Muse.” I’d seen Akil angry, and the expression on his face wasn’t anger. The slant of his voice suggested pride. Being demon and a being of chaos, I imagined my crimes were tantamount to heroism in the netherworld. Chaos followed me wherever I went.

“I killed Enforcers too. I don’t suppose Adam’ll let that go unpunished either.”

Akil’s expression ticked, surprise widening his eyes before he shut it down. He spat out an ancient word that could only be a demon curse. “Your return and my… lapse.” A curious rumble emanated from the back of his throat, not quite a growl. “This is… unexpected. When David Ryder told me how you’d died, I believed him. How is it possible he lied?” He growled, the surprise back in his eyes. “The Enforcer looked me in the eyes and lied. To me.”

A taste of your own medicine.
“No, he didn’t lie. He believed I was dead. Everyone did.”

Akil closed his eyes and sucked in a shuddering breath. He opened them again. “Why didn’t you come to me?”

Because I no longer needed him. I sighed. This whole mess wasn’t going away, despite my best attempts to pretend it was. “I thought you were in the netherworld. Were you here? All this time?” Had he been mourning me? Was that why he’d been virtually comatose when I’d found him?

He tilted his head curiously, perhaps really seeing me for the first time, taking in my bottle-blond hair, slim frame, and no doubt putting that image together with the black-hearted demon who killed a prince and set a dozen Enforcers ablaze.

I squirmed a little under his penetrating gaze. “What was I meant to do? I‘ve got demons queuing up to slit my throat. Val, Levi, not to mention the vile bastard rooting around my soul. I had to keep that little girl safe, the girl you dumped on me, by the way. When you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, right?” My fake bravado was almost enough to paint over the cracks in my fragile emotional state. Although the way Akil’s gaze penetrated, I wondered if he could see right through those cracks into my swirling darkness. He couldn’t know the gut-wrenching fear I was harboring for my waning humanity, could he?

“Where is the half-blood girl?”

“In the room down the hall.”

A faint smile crept across his lips, and his attention wandered again. This time, I felt the skim of his gaze like the touch of his hands. He knew it. The hungry look in his eyes told me he’d like nothing better than to relive the erotic memories we shared. “You are a vision of temptation.”

I returned his smile. I’d felt something in him as we’d lain together as man and woman. In all the years I’d slept with Akil, we had never reveled in one another like we had in those hours. Sex had always been a raw act, a physical need, not an emotional one. I’d never woken nestled protectively in his arms as I had moments ago. He’d never told he wanted to love me the way a man does a woman. Last night was different on so many levels, and some of those levels terrified me. He had said he wanted to ‘love’ me and then corrected himself by adding ‘make love to me’. I wasn’t naive enough to believe he loved me. I’d been down that road before, but he felt something. His reverent touch had confirmed as much, and considering where I’d come from and who I was, my heart just about shattered with pride at being the tiny, insignificant half blood standing beside a Prince of Hell. My demon purred in agreement, I allowed the verbal equivalent to ripple at the back of my throat and watched Akil’s gaze splinter with fire.