Embraced (Eternal Balance) (3 page)

She shifted and the covers fell to the side, revealing a glimpse of her leg. Azi stirred, flashing images of creamy skin and supple curves, ripe beneath my fingers. I swallowed.

“Inviting me in here was a bad idea.” My pulse jumped and the air heated. Every breath she took echoed inside my head, a siren’s song with the ability to control my every move.

She shoved the covers away, swinging her long legs over the edge. Blue tank top and barely-there panties. Fuck.

“We’re more than this, Jax.” She crossed the room to where I stood, moving deliberately slow and swinging her hips. With her index finger, she traced a path from my chin to my ear, along my jawline. The sensation was euphoric. “We’re more than stolen moments and forbidden touches.” She grabbed my hand and placed it over her heart. “You’re my other half.”

Pulse thundering in my ears, I tried to focus on her words and not the way her lips looked as they moved. Not the memory of what they tasted like, or how they felt—sinfully soft and electric—pressed against mine. Not the slight curve of her breast, so close to where my hand lay. “I want you.”

“Do you?” Her hand, still atop mine, moved south a few inches until my fingers rested against the underside of her breast. She rose onto her toes and whispered at my ear, her voice low and breathless, “I couldn’t tell…”

This time the demon didn’t need to taunt me. The thoughts came all on their own, a series of mouthwatering scenarios that all involved Sam naked, in various positions, screaming my name. It was more than I could take. I grabbed her shoulders and reversed our position, spinning her toward the wall and pinning her there with the length of my body. I was straddling the line, and all it would take to push me over was the smallest nudge. One she seemed intent on providing.

“I could take you.” Hard, I ground myself against her, the friction sending an even mixture of pleasure and pain coursing through me.

There was a wicked grin on her lips, and a strong sense of satisfaction surged through the link. She
wanted
to push me. To send me over the edge.

With a soft, pleading moan, she let her head fall back against the wall. The sound turned everything dark. I lost focus. Lost where I was and what I was doing. A small nagging voice in the back of my head that told me this wasn’t right, that Sam wouldn’t push me like this, but it was eclipsed by blind lust. The desire was so potent I could taste it, sharp and acidic, so unshakable I found myself helpless. A slave to it.

The demon was right there with me.

“
We
could do anything and
everything
that we wanted, and you would like it.” All that existed in that moment was Sam and the unbearable need. Something gnawed at my subconscious. A thought too dim to recognize. A warning… It wasn’t important. The urge to satisfy the darkest fantasies we both had for this woman overshadowed everything. To take her. Possess her. “You would
beg
for it.”

“Careful,” she whispered fervently. “You’re coming undone—”

I grabbed a handful of her hair and braced my fist against the wall, securing her there. “Isn’t that what you wanted?” I growled. Leaning in, I skimmed the line of her jaw, nipping lightly at the skin as I made my way down, around to her collarbone.

She arched against me, a soft rumble in her throat. Her hands tangled in my hair.

Azi sent an image. Me taking Sam. Hard. Fast. Possessive and feral… No. Not me. Azirak. I watched as the picture played out, mesmerized by the ferocity of it. Prurient grunting and a feminine groan that made me hard as rock and ready to explode. I was enthralled. Captivated by the savagery of the scene.

Vision-Sam cried out. Except it wasn’t her voice I heard. It was something deeper, a sound far too harsh to have come from human lips. The vision changed. It was still me, but Sam was gone. Beneath me was something shadowed. A form distinctly female, but not human. Not one I knew, yet one I wanted to devour.

A flash of dark hair and pale skin. Large, full breasts bounced as I rammed myself violently forward, sinking into warmth. I growled, a feral, inhuman sound that mingled with the moans of excitement coming from the thing beneath me. The sensation that came over me, a savage desire unlike anything else I’d ever experienced, needed to be sated.

The vision ended, but the feeling it left behind was all consuming. It left me raw, an exposed nerve throbbing for release. Words spilled from my lips, too soft for human ears, syllables and sounds I didn’t understand but physically hurt to hear. I buried my face in Sam’s neck, running my tongue from her cheek to collarbone. One taste wasn’t enough. I wanted more.
Needed it
.

I raked my fingers down her body, to her backside, and hefted her off the ground. In response she wrapped both legs tight around my waist. I crossed the room and threw her onto the bed. The frame groaned and something metallic snapped. I didn’t care. The visions started again and even though every inch of my mind was telling me to stop, my body refused to listen.

“Jax,” Sam panted. A whisper of gray swirled, mingling with the thick orange. “Maybe we—”

I covered her mouth with mine to silence her. She tasted like lust. Lust and fear… I breathed it in, desperate for more, while in the back of my mind I was horrified. The fear. I craved it almost as much as I craved her touch. A rush of possibilities clamored through my head. Ways I could increase the potency. Things I could do to scare her…

What the fuck was I doing?

I jumped up and backed myself into the opposite corner of the room, breath coming in shallow pulls. My stomach tightened.

Sam sat up and started toward me. “What are you—”

“Stop,” I roared. She froze, and I squeezed my eyes closed for a second. Everything was spinning. The images hadn’t stopped. In one after another, I watched myself take what I wanted from her, satisfying the demon’s sickest whims. In my mind she screamed and cried and begged me to stop. Then in an instant, she was cooing and pleading for more. Back and forth. Pleasure and pain. “The pictures… They’re dark and vicious. Possessive. I wanted to hurt you, Sammy. To taste your fear.”

“Fear? Jax, I could never be af—”

I slammed my fists backward into the wall behind me. The plaster crumbled beneath the blow, showering the carpet with dust and debris. “Yes!” The word ripped from my throat, bouncing like a stray bullet off the walls of her small room. I took a step forward, goaded by the look of surprise on her face. My lips spread with a grin. “I could make you afraid. I could do things that would terrify you.”

Her skin paled. This time, instead of coming closer, she had the sense to back away. Two steps to the right, then around the bottom of the bed until she was on the other side. “This isn’t you talking, Jax. It’s Azi.”

“Maybe it is,” I admitted, even though I couldn’t be sure anymore. The line between the demon and I grew hazier each day. I’d never admit it, but I worried one day it would disappear all together, leaving us a single creature. “But some small part is me.
I
liked what I saw, Sammy. I
needed
it.”

“I don’t believe that,” she said, resolute.

“Listen to me!” I shouted. This was serious. I wanted Sam. In every way, I wanted her. But she was more to me than the desire she sparked. She was home. My best friend. To have so little control over my impulses meant Azi
was
stronger than I’d anticipated. Even now there was very little keeping me from closing the distance between her and…

Deep breath.
“I’m having a hard time controlling myself around you. I saw…”

What had I seen? The fire I’d felt for the thing in the vision still burned in my veins, tangled with my desire for Sam. It left me raw and exposed.

“I don’t care what you saw,” she said softly. One foot in front of the other, she cautiously made her way around the bed to where I stood and took my hands. They looked huge in hers—calloused, rough things brushing against perfect creamy satin. “You never give yourself enough credit, Jax. You are the strongest man I know.”

Strong? She was fucking insane. My heart thundered, the erratic rhythm making it impossible to draw anything more than quick, shallow breaths that did little to satisfy my need for air. The walls seemed to be closing in. The room to be growing smaller. Need. There was something I needed. Something that would make this suffocating feeling go away.

Sam shook her head. “Jax…”

I grabbed her arms and pinned them behind her. Control. The desire to dominate. She needed to know that she was
mine
. “You belong to me,” I whispered fiercely, working my way down her neck. I wasn’t gentle. Taking small sections of skin between my teeth, I nipped and twisted. Not hard enough to be painful, but with enough force to make her gasp. To drive my point home. “You belong to me
. Mine
,” I said, pulling away.

Any reservations she might have had after my sickening confession seemed to melt into nothingness. She pushed forward. I felt her eagerness. To taste me again. To feel me pressed against her.
Inside
her. But I held her back. At arm’s length, my hands still knotted in her hair, I kept her secure.

“You understand me, right?” My fingers twitched, tightening, and a flash of that same dark female figure almost brought me to my knees.

Sam nodded, slowly, then jerked forward. I let go of her hair, surprised, as she grabbed either side of my neck, her nails digging into the skin. Stopping a fraction of an inch from my lips, she said, her voice low and hypnotic, “
Understand
that it works both ways.”

Fuck…

She bit at my bottom lip, then wriggled her hands up beneath my shirt, dragging her nails hard across the skin. The pain drove Azi wild. It just about got me off, too. My hands fell to my zipper.

My entire body ached to be inside her, and the image of that female, still too fresh in my mind, needed to be scrubbed away. This would be the thing to do it—replacing that scene with one of my making. One of my choosing. I leaned in again, determined to do this despite Heckle’s warnings, but…

Something crashed outside the room.

Chapter Four

Sam

J
ax was at the door in an instant. “Stay here,” he barked over his shoulder. I opened my mouth to argue, but he slipped from the room, dismissing me.

Oh, hell no.

I yanked open the door and followed.

A few steps ahead of me, he rounded the corner and rushed into the hallway between the living room and kitchen, where it sounded like the noise had come from. When I caught up to him he was in the doorway. The glass above the door on the other side of the kitchen was shattered—a million tiny pieces lay on the floor. “What happened?”

Jax whirled around, eyes narrow. “I told you to—”

Something flew at us from the right. We were knocked apart like bowling pins, but somehow I managed to stay upright. Not Jax, though. He went down hard with a grunt, taking the brunt of the blow and toppling beneath a large mass—a man. The intruder turned my way, eyes the color of midnight ink. Not a man. A demon.

Forearm braced behind Jax’s neck to keep him down, it delivered a series of harsh blows. “Take her outside,” the demon snarled.

I spun to see that a second demon had appeared and stepped between Jax and me. Its eyes—narrow, soulless black orbs—traveled over my body, from tip to toe, hungry and assessing. “Submit, or spend an eternity in agony,” it said.

I had no idea what the hell it was talking about and didn’t care. I ducked as it made a swipe in my direction, then spun away, losing my bearings for a moment. I’d managed to avoid it, but the demon wasn’t giving up. Another attempt and its hands wrapped like a vise around my arm and dragged me close. Putrid breath wafted around me.

“Sammy!” Jax yelled. He pushed off the floor, throwing the other demon off balance. But it recovered quickly, and just as he got to his feet, it charged. They both went down again.

“He will not stop us from taking you,” growled the demon attached to my arm. Its grip bit into my skin, bringing involuntary tears to my eyes. If it squeezed much harder, my arm was likely to pop off.

“News for you, asshole.” I struggled—in vain—and it tightened its grip. “You’re not taking me anyplace.” I had no clue why I was suddenly catnip to these things, but I had no intention of
submitting
to a damn thing.

“I killed a Son of Cain a hundred years ago.” The thing faced me and with a wicked sneer. “They break as easily as humans. You have no choice.”

Anger welled up inside me, and even though I knew it was pointless, I lashed out with my free hand, punching and clawing at whatever I could hit. One of my flailing blows caught it in the eye. The demon cursed and stumbled back, releasing my arm, and I tore across the room.

As I neared him, Jax was climbing to his feet again. He ducked, missing what looked like a powerful blow by inches, and pivoted, bringing both fists upward. The motion connected with the underside of the enemy’s jaw.

He readied, probably expecting it to come at him again, but it didn’t. It recovered and charged me instead. Jax bolted forward, but the demon was closer.

Everything went silent and the entire room slowed. A single blow. I felt the impact, felt my feet actually leaving the floor, then my body shot sideways and hit the wall with brutal force. Everything grew hazy. A sound split the air, a horrible noise that could have scared the devil. It shook the walls and rattled the fixtures, and when my vision cleared, I got chills when I spied the source.

It’d come from Jax.

He was on the demon that threw me in an instant. Everything was tearing flesh and splatters of gore. Eerie sounds of destruction followed on the heels of that agonized howl. The thing put up a fight, but was no match for his unadulterated rage. When he was done there was nothing left. The demon was a pile of unrecognizable pulp.

Satisfied, Jax whirled on the next one. It watched me with a hungry gleam and an excited shiver. I scooted backward as the demon lunged, and Jax charged. They crashed to the ground, narrowly missing me as I stumbled up and dove behind the couch for cover.

But the demon wasn’t interested in Jax. It wanted me. Badly. Bucking Jax off, it made another attempt to grab me, launching itself over the couch and latching on to a handful of my hair. It jerked back hard, and I couldn’t help it. I screamed.

“It belongs to us,” the thing said with a growl, giving another, brutal yank. I had no choice other than to follow the momentum, rising to my feet as tears stung my eyes.

“
She
belongs to me,” Jax roared. There was a rush of air, and a half second later the pressure at my temple disappeared. He grasped the demon’s head on either side and twisted. One good snap and its hands fell slack as it crumpled to the floor. Jax opened his mouth, but something charged between us, knocking us apart.

“
Death
belongs to you, traitor.” A new demon barreled into the fray, snarling at Jax. Jesus. These things just kept coming.

It traded blows with him halfway across the room. Jax threw his whole body forward, forehead crashing into the demon’s with a resounding crack. It stumbled back, and he followed through with a blow to the side of its head, then another one, even more brutal than the first, to its throat. But just as Jax was about to deliver the deathblow, something exploded through the large picture window in the dining room.

A blur streaked across the room. I cried out a warning—it was headed for Jax—but it moved too fast. It collided with him and the other demon and knocked them apart. The newcomer pivoted and turned on Jax’s attacker. “We are not here to harm our Lord,” it growled.

The first one made a sound deep in its throat but backed away. Seemingly satisfied, the newcomer stood, glaring at Jax, then turned to me.

“Don’t even think about it,” Jax warned.

Its gaze lingered on me for a moment longer, lips twisted and teeth bared, before it relaxed and switched its focus to Jax. “Fear not, Lord Azirak. We have dispatched the enemy and mean you no harm.”

“Could have fooled me,” I mumbled. The place was a mess. Broken furniture and spattered gore decorated a large part of the room. And the smell? It was like a thousand piles of roadkill.

The demon’s gaze swiveled back to me. “We understand now why Lord Azirak keeps you, but…” It growled and came another step closer. “Maintain your distance. Malphi will not tolerate your stink on him.”

“Malphi…” Jax tensed. “Is that who sent you? Those two—”

“Were of Zenak’s clan. I apologize for not arriving sooner.” The demon’s eyebrows disappeared beneath shaggy bangs. Wearing a Yankee’s cap and worn blue jeans, he looked like a college kid ready for the weekend. “As for Malphi…do you remember, my lord?”

I didn’t need the link to know Jax was two steps away from ramming his fist down the demon’s throat. All that
my lord
crap.

Wait…

My lord
crap? Only members of Azi’s clan referred to Jax that way. But it’d mentioned Malphi. Oh my God… Malphi was part of Azi’s clan?

“I know the name. That’s all,” Jax said, deceptively calm. I had no clue how he held it together. His rage simmered just beneath the surface. I could taste it through the link, a potent, coppery tang that coated the back of my throat.

“The name…” the demon repeated. If I didn’t know better, I would have said it looked disappointed. There was the slightest twitch of its lip and a subtle slump of the shoulders. “No matter. Malphi knows you—and has asked me to deliver a message.”

“What kind of message?”

It turned to me, eerie black eyes boring straight into mine. “Agree to be claimed, or be destroyed.”

Jax snorted. The spark of fury still lingered in his eyes, but there was also excitement. “You first.” He grabbed the demon’s head between his hands and twisted hard. Apparently the fact that it’d been one of Azi’s demons wasn’t an issue. It fell to the floor in a lifeless heap. With a nod to the last remaining demon, he jabbed a finger at me and said, “Report back to Malphi. Whatever it is you want with Sam, forget it. It’s never going to happen.”

With one final snap of its teeth, the demon slipped through the broken window.

“You okay?”

The cuff on my wrist tightened, and a feeling of dread bubbled deep in the pit of my stomach. In the basement back at the Viking, the guy had insisted I
submit
. The demon said the same thing a few minutes ago. What the hell was going on? “Claimed? What was he talking about?”

“I dunno, Sammy. But I bet Heckle has a clue.” Jax watched me with an odd expression. Almost as if he expected me to crack. “We have to find him.”

“Agreed,” I responded. “But first we should clean up.”

He was covered in blood. Everything was covered in blood, actually. Rick’s previously beige striped couch was coated in carnage, as were the curtains and carpet. The coffee table was smashed to pieces and scattered around the room. It was pure destruction…which I was becoming strangely used to. Six months ago something like this would have freaked me out. Now it was just another day. There was a strange sense of familiarity in it all and that scared the crap out of me.

As I shook my arm, Jax looked from the cuff to me. The doorbell rang and he threw up his hands. “I call bullshit here… It’s like two in the morning—who the hell could be out there?”

“Well, at least we know it’s not a demon. They’re far too rude to ring the bell.”

He snorted. “Never know.”

“There really is no such thing as a break, is there?” I said, crossing the room to the door. I had the urge to rub the inside of my wrist but resisted, figuring it would only make him antsier. When I pulled back the curtains, I groaned. There on the step was the worst possible visitor. A demon might have actually been preferable. It was our next door neighbor—my Aunt Kelly. “Our messy living room and my spanking new demon jewelry isn’t our only problem…”