Demon's Delight (19 page)

“Hey!” he cried as one snaked out to suck a bit of blood from his arm.

“I cannot drug you,” said the doctor's disembodied voice, seemingly in the tube with him. “These procedures require an unclouded mind. Please try to think calm thoughts.”

“You try to think calm thoughts,” he muttered. “You're not the one in here.”

Without warning, spinning sunbursts of violet light shot out from a dozen of the tube's devices, followed by an eerie rising and falling wail. Every hair on Harry's body came to attention. Whatever the machine was doing, he wished it would stop. Both light and sound buzzed through his skin, penetrating tissues that should have been unreachable. His heart began to thunder inside his chest, and that scared him, too. He sincerely hoped he was too young to die of apoplectic fear.

Unbidden, a memory from his childhood rose. He'd been ten and so hungry he'd stolen a raw potato from the workhouse kitchen. Another boy had informed the matron, and, as punishment for his theft, Harry had spent two days locked in a dark closet. Though the experience nearly killed him, Harry had refused to cry. A few months later, he'd run away to live on the streets where, ironically, he'd eaten better than he had from “charitable” hands.

He'd had to sell a piece of his soul to do it, but that had simply taught him the value of doggedness.

This will be the same,
he told himself. He pushed away the panic his lack of comprehension caused. The darkness and hunger he'd experienced in that closet he'd understood. But the differences between then and now didn't matter. He would be free.

This became his prayer as Khira's machine performed its mysterious operations. Instruments crawled over him on little metal legs, pricking him intermittently with needles. The violet sunbursts turned purple and blue and green. The unearthly music circled around him, murmuring sounds he almost thought were words. He saw things that weren't there. Clouds floating beneath him. The whispering tops of trees. Snowflakes crystallized from the water inside his cells, and then in structures even more miniscule, structures Harry didn't have names for.

Peace,
the tiny, spiraling ladders soothed.
This song is perfecting us.

Harry strove to ignore it all, repeating only
I will be free
, like the endless mantras he'd been told Yskutian monks performed. He would rather have confronted any danger with his fists, but if his head was all he had to work with, by God, his head was what he'd use.

S
HE'D
thought there was nothing the human could do to stop her, but she'd been wrong. Twenty-four hours had passed, and none of her carefully planned modifications were taking effect. She'd increased the modulator's power as much as she dared. She had the genetic sequencer taking samples every fifteen minutes, but nothing achieved results. Each time his DNA looked like it was changing, the next test would reveal its codes had snapped back. Harry had gone into some sort of trance, and the interference from his brain waves was wreaking havoc with her programs.

The guards had been by the observation room no less than three times to check on how she was progressing—and to remind her that she had better make progress soon.

“We understand if you feel sorry for him,” one had said. “The human is likeable. But that's no reason to go soft.”

“If it helps,” the second put in, “the future won't look bright for either of you if you fail.”

Khira assured them she was neither “going soft,” as they put it, nor about to fail. This was just a glitch that she would work out. These things happened to all researchers.

The minute they shut the door behind them, she put her head in her hands. She'd brought the human here to save him from mortal danger, and now he was in it up to his ears. The fact that she shared the danger didn't improve her mood.

Harry's unexpected stubbornness was narrowing her choices. She was going to have to do what her kind did best: wrap as pretty a package as she could around an outright lie.

 

As soon as Khira released the straps that bound him to the crystal bed, Harry sagged onto his knees. The state she found him in worsened her shame. His skin was pale and clammy, the purple circles beneath his eyes testifying to the fact that he had slept no more than she had. He stared at her, dull-eyed and breathing hard, like an ox who'd been led to slaughter only to find his end delayed.

A coil of cold, hard metal seemed to be twisting in Khira's chest. This was not what genetic science was supposed to be. In her heart, her chosen field was clean and beautiful. It was about possibilities.

Wrenched, she touched his pale, perspiring cheek with her glove. Harry flinched as if expecting worse. Khira dropped her hand.

“I'm ready to bargain,” she said.

“You'll let me go?”

His voice sounded like gravel. Khira gathered her will to lie convincingly. “If you want to go, I'll release you after a year.”

Harry barked out a laugh. He waved in the direction of the modulator, now retracted into the ceiling. “A year of this?”

“
This
will be over soon.”

“I don't believe you,” he said more bluntly than any Yama would.

Khira fought a blush even though her last statement had been true. “If you don't cooperate, those guards will kill you.”

“I thought you didn't need my cooperation.”

“I was wrong.” She drew a breath to give herself time to decide. Maybe it was best to let him know what the problem was. “You're doing something in your head. It's interfering with my programs.”

The stare he treated her to then was calculating. She could see his color coming back.

“Oh, please,” she said, purposefully putting scorn into it. “Don't think you'll gain anything by continuing this obstruction. If my experiment fails, the guards will just get rid of you and snatch someone else.”

Harry growled with animal frustration, then pulled her forcefully down to her knees with him. “How can you do this? I don't care how advanced you Yama are. I'm a person. Flesh and blood like you. How can you treat me like a specimen and still sleep at night?”

Her reaction was completely inappropriate. When he seized her face in his big, hard hands, heat coursed from the contact straight to her sex. Everything between her legs pulsed with hunger—her clitoris, her labia, the suddenly slick passage that led to her womb. She knew his fingers wouldn't quell her craving again. Only his cock could do that, only the hard, driving thickness that would lock their separate bodies into one.

Barriers cracked inside her, barriers that had been erected brick by brick since leaving her parents' care. Each had brought her closer to living up to the Yamish ideal. Each had helped her fit in. Now her protections crumbled around her. She began to cry and didn't know how to stop. The best she could do was cover her face.

“If they kill you,” she said, aware that she was sobbing, “I may never sleep again. Please,
please
trust me when I say I'm trying to help.”

Harry's hands had fallen away when she started crying. Now he gripped her shoulders and squeezed hard. Khira didn't think this was meant to be comforting. His gaze bored into hers.

“I need a token to prove that you aren't lying.”

“Anything,” she swore, trying to pull away from his hands. His energy was flowing into her, his human capacity for emotion. The continuing loss of control was more than she could stand. “I'll do anything you want.”

“I want this.” He gave her shoulders a shake. “I want the gloves off once and for all. I want you to bare what you've been working so hard to hide from me. I want to look into your soul when you make love to me.”

She gasped, her tears stopping at his boldness. “I don't—”

“Save your breath. I know you want it as much as I do. I felt you dripping down my hand yesterday, and I can smell the lust on you now.”

She could only smell him, and his scent was as heady as his touch. “That's an accidental side effect. Your etheric force is transferring to me.”

“I've lived on the streets of Avvar. I've sold my life force to the
rohn
in exchange for money to keep me fed. As I recall, none of those Yama wanted to bed me.”

“You lived on the streets?” Khira asked, struggling against the awful-wonderful weakness his closeness bred. “I thought you were a businessman.”

“I am a businessman. I've fought my way up in the world since then.”

She believed him. Pride had brought his chin up, and confidence shone in his gold-green eyes. He wasn't ashamed of what he'd had to do; he'd accepted it. This assertion of his power—male and professional—was restoring him to himself. Khira wished she
were
a doctor of psychology. Maybe then she'd know if his recovery would increase her chance of gaining his compliance.

“To have overcome such obstacles is impressive,” she ventured, stalling for time. Her hands had risen unconsciously to his chest, but they were hardly pushing him off. “I would have thought you'd want nothing to do with my kind.”

“Khira,” he growled, the sound sending fingers of arousal deep into her. “I believe we've established I have no problem being close to you. Now say yes or no.”

“I can't,” she confessed. “I can't do either.”

He kissed her, hard at first and then slow and deep. He groaned into her mouth as his tongue swept her upper palate. Oh, she loved the rumbling sounds he made. Her hands curled helplessly into his chest hair. She wanted her gloves off, too—probably more than he did.

“Say yes,” he growled, and kissed her deeper yet, each thrust of his tongue a searing imitation of what he wanted her to agree to.

Khira's head bent back with pleasure from imagining it. “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes.”

 

Harry had been hardening ever since he'd caught her to him for a blistering kiss. At her answer, his cock jolted up so forcefully, it might have been trying to punch through her clothes. She'd said
yes
. He was going to have her.

Too impatient to wait, he reached for her right hand and peeled its long glove off—this one black satin. Trapping her wrist, he brought her palm to his mouth to kiss. She watched him, unable to take her eyes off his. When he finished the kiss with a lick, her shiver had him pulling her hand to his groin.

“Touch me,” he said. “Wrap those demon fingers around my cock.”

She was panting as she did it, and, Lord, it felt good. His cock swelled in her hold, and her eyes went black. The air between them shimmered like a summer day.

“Tell me what that means,” he said, “when your eyes go dark.”

“It means—” She paused for breath. “It means I'm very excited. It means my arousal level jumped from what it was before.”

Harry's arousal jumped enough for both of them. “Touching me arouses you.”

“Yes, though I can't explain why my reaction is so intense.”

He smiled at the plaintive note in her voice. “I'm glad,” he murmured next to her ear, unable to resist nuzzling her silken hair. “I want us to touch each other all over.”

“I could—” She swallowed. “I could take off my clothes.”

“Why don't you let me?” he suggested and reached for the side tie to her pretty black-and-gold wrap tunic.

Her hand was still on him, as if his cock were her personal life-line. He had to ease her fingers free before he could peel the embroidered garment over her head. He was glad the Yama had such strange ideas about what constituted appropriate women's garb. It was very easy to take off. The breasts he'd only felt through her clothes up till now were as lovely as he'd expected, delicate, uptilted handfuls with red nipples. He bent to suckle one pointed tip and thrilled to her strong shudder.

Khira tore the second glove off herself.

“I can't take it,” she said, her hands forking through his hair to clutch him closer. “I need you inside me now.”

She pushed away, her strength surprising him. She stood to shove her trousers and underthings down her legs. Harry didn't mean to, but he gaped up at her when she was done. He had never seen a naked woman who looked like she did. Human fashion tended toward curves and softness, and Khira's body was a thorough-bred's—lean and strong and ready to race. Awed, he smoothed his hands up her thighs, the muscles as easy to see as a man's. Reaching the top, he spread his fingers across her mound.

“You're smooth here.”

His thumb curled gently over her vulva, and she covered his hand with hers. “We remove our hair.”

Her face was still, her Yamish mask.
She's afraid of how I'll see her nakedness,
he thought. The guess made it easy to bend forward, easy to press his lips to that bare triangle of skin. Though he saw no outward change, he sensed her relax.

“You're beautiful,” he said. “May I kiss you here?”

She drew a quick breath and nodded. He parted her, baring her reddened pleasure peak to his mouth. He thought he had never looked forward to tasting a woman more, to watching how she reacted. Her fingers bit into his shoulders when he sucked the swollen button against his tongue, not seeming to mind that his day-old beard must be scratching her. Or perhaps she liked the feeling. She made no sound, but her body seemed to moan silently. Half a minute later, she tore herself away. He looked up at her. Her eyes were black again before they cleared.

His body clenched to realize how much he was exciting her.

“You want me inside you,” he said, the knowledge sure in his mind. He'd been steadying himself on her hips. He felt them trembling as she mouthed
yes
. He sat back on his heels and spread his knees. His cock thrust up in blatant invitation, as eager to get on with this as she was. “Come down to me.”

He reached up to help her join him on the floor, their fingers fitting naturally. As soon as she released his hands, he lifted her, cupping her tight little bottom to bring her up his thighs. Her hair curtained down his arms in a black whisper. He closed his eyes, just for a moment, as her soft, satiny mound slid to a rest against his erection. It had been a long time since he'd had a woman. He wasn't sure how long he could last with one he wanted this badly, but he bloody well wasn't going to stop because of that.

When he opened his eyes again, her silver gaze was waiting for his. Her hand fluttered down to cover his pulsing tip. He knew it was weeping from the way her palm slid around.

She looked down at what she held. “I didn't know you would be this big without the drugs.”

“I won't hurt you.”

“You couldn't. I'm stronger than a human woman. Even inside.”

“Show me,” he challenged with a smile that drew her lips to brush his. She must have enjoyed the contact. Her cheek turned from side to side in his short whiskers.

“I want you to kiss me when I take you.”

She said it like a confession, and he had to laugh. He didn't think he'd ever been
taken
before.

“Why does that amuse you?” she asked.

He kissed her rather than answer, pushing deep into her mouth, stroking her sleek, wet tongue until it answered his. His body was too hungry for more talking; besides which, that pouting mouth of hers was made for kissing, the one sensual feature on her smooth Yamish face.