Inferno-Kat 2 (15 page)

Hades watched warily as Leucothea shook Onyx’s hand. She had a look of bashful fascination on her face. This was not the time or place for nascent love.

“OK, now that we’re all friends, give us the DD antidote, show us how to get to the holding cells, and we’ll be on our way.”

Onyx moved his gaze to Hades and lifted his brow. “Ah, there’s the real reason you’ve come.

The DD antidote.” He turned around and plucked a thin glass vial full of a black liquid from a rack of twenty. “Who’s got the virus?” He turned around and nodded to Hades. “You?”

Hades made a grab for the tube, but Onyx pulled it from his reach. The man moved with more grace than Hades had pegged him with. Almost animal-like.

“Hmmm, I know. The woman, right?”

Hades wrapped a hand around Onyx’s neck and squeezed. “Just give me the fucking vial.”

“I will if you take me with you,” he managed to squeak.

Hades reached for the man’s hand and pried the test tube out of his fingers to slide it into his jacket pocket. He let go of Onyx’s neck and pushed back. “No. By the looks of you, you could be a lot worse than turning into a Dweller.”

Onyx brought a hand to his throat and rubbed at the bruised flesh. “That’s not the right vial.”

“What are you playing at?” Hades stepped into him again, backing him up into the table.

“That’s a cure for hemorrhoids in your pocket, not DD.”

Unsheathing his deadliest blade, Hades pressed it to Onyx’s cheek. “I will hurt you.”

“I know. But like I said before, I’ll give you the antidote if you take me with you.”

Hades could see fear in the man’s dark eyes, but he also saw truth. He didn’t think he was lying.

Most people couldn’t lie with a knife jabbed into their skin.

“I’m a dead man now. There’s nothing for me here. I’ve been a prisoner for a long time. Now I see a way out, and I’m taking it.”

Glancing behind Onyx, Hades eyed the multitude of test tubes and vials containing different liquids. He could grab them all in hopes that he could discern the correct one, but the chances of drinking a potentially deadly dose was high. He was no chemist or doctor and had no clue what various poisons or tinctures were supposed to look or smell like. It seemed he didn’t really have a choice.

“I’d hurry if I were you, Hades, my man. Looks like we’re going to have company in about, oh, two minutes.”

Glancing behind him, Hades noticed a small monitor on another cabinet. It was a TV screen, obviously observing the door to Onyx’s lab. Four big guards with guns marched toward the metal door.

Coughing violently, Hades took a step back and sheathed his knife. He wiped at his mouth, smearing the blood there across his lips. “You have a deal.”

“Good call.” Onyx swiped at his cheek where Hades had nicked his skin. “Now I suggest you get back into the tunnel. Backtrack till you see a turn, take it, keep going, and you’ll see a black grate. Go through that, and you’ll be in my special room just for visitors such as yourselves.”

Hades hesitated. Could they trust him? What if the moment the guards entered, Onyx gave them away? He supposed he had to have faith that he hadn’t come all this way just to fail. He wouldn’t fail. He couldn’t. Kat needed him, and he’d be damned if he let her down again.

Nodding to Leucothea, Hades rushed back to the hole in the floor. He helped her, dropped in his pack, and then followed it down. Before he slid the grate back in place, he looked at Onyx.

“Don’t betray us. I’ll make you pay, even from death’s grip.”

Onyx nodded. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say that’s exactly where you’ve already come from.”

Hades dropped the grate and scurried back from the opening, just as the door to Onyx’s lab burst open and four burly guards marched in.

W
hen Kat rolled over and felt the warmth of hard male flesh next to her, her eyes snapped open, and she raised her hand to strike. If it was Cal again in the bed, he was going to get another beating. A broken nose would be the least of his worries. But it wasn’t Cal.

Hades blinked back at her, a sexy smile on his handsome, rugged face.

She sat up and glanced around the room, Satarah’s room, and then looked back down at him.

“But this is a dream, right? You can’t possibly be here.”

“Yes, it’s a dream.”

She took in everything about him as her heart squeezed tight. Almost gasping from the pain of it, Kat reached out and touched him on the chest. His flesh was how she remembered. Hot and hard, a pure pleasure to experience.

The sight of him never failed to arouse her. He was genetically gifted, with strong broad shoulders, rock-hard chest, and muscled abs. The first time she’d seen him naked, she had all but drooled. He was pure male perfection. And he had been all hers.

She berated herself for walking away from him the first time. If she hadn’t, maybe he would still be alive and in her arms for real. She claimed she had done it to protect him. Shield him from the virus that grew stronger in her every day. But she could finally admit it was to protect herself from exactly this. From getting too close, from becoming too emotionally involved. From falling in love. A love so fierce that not even death could crush it.

Stroking her hand up and down his chest, she said, “I’m sorry.”

He covered her roving hand with his. “What for?”

“For walking out on you. On us.”

“I forgive you.” He smiled and pulled her down to him. “Kiss me, and I’ll show you how much.”

Lying across his chest, Kat covered his mouth with hers. She kissed him fiercely, parting his lips with her tongue and sweeping it over his again and again. The dream felt so real. She could even taste him on her lips. Like sweet wine and something else. Something she’d never sampled before.

Before she could register it, Hades wrapped his arms around her and rolled her over onto her back, settling his massive frame on top of her. For a woman who had always wanted control, Kat was constantly surprised how wonderful it felt to have him cover her this way. To have his weight pressing her down, keeping her still while he accessed her body. Hades had that way of being dominant but never actually taking power from her. She had always felt safe and secure in his arms, under his form.

Sighing as he pressed his lips to her neck, she moved one leg up and wrapped it around his waist, giving him full access to her. She was in his hands. She would do what she could never do while he had been alive.

Give him complete control.

He must have sensed her surrender by the way he looked at her. Hungry. Growling low in his throat, he moved his hand up her side and molded her breast in his palm. He rolled her nipple between thumb and forefinger and then pinched it brutally. Hard enough to tear a gasp from her lips. No stranger to pain, Kat enjoyed some of the pleasurable torments during sex. But this was something new for Hades.

Urged on by her moans, Hades continued to manipulate her nipple, pulling and pinching until her whole breast ached, throbbing with a steady heartbeat. Busy at her breast, he trailed his tongue down her neck to her shoulder, where he nipped and sucked on her muscled flesh.

Kat trailed her hands down his back over his straining muscles. She loved to feel him quiver and pulse under her palms. Reveled in the way his body reacted to her touch. Moving her hands, she traced her fingers over the hard swell of his ass. Hades had the hardest, most perfect ass of any man she’d ever slept with. Buns of steel, she had once called them. She loved how they clenched under her touch.

Continuing her exploration, Kat trailed her hand up his bent leg and around to where she really wanted to touch. She could feel his flesh tremble as she trailed her fingers down to his cock.

Pressed up hard, like satin-covered steel, against her hip, he was fully erect, primed to plunge into her. She was eager as well to have him fill her completely.

When at last she wrapped her hand around him, Hades groaned with delight. He stilled for a moment at her breast. She imagined it was to appreciate fully the way she caressed him. She enjoyed the feel of his hot, heavy weight in her hand, the silkiness of his skin, while she stroked back and forth.

As she continued to rub his cock, he swept his hand down her body, over the swell of her ass cheek, and into her soft, warm folds. Forgoing any ceremony, he plunged three fingers into her slick core, pushing them deep.

Kat cried out at the assault. She was wet and open, more than ready for it, but the quick penetration came as a surprise. A pleasant one but still a shock. While she tried to catch her breath, he thrust his fingers into her again and again, swirling them deep inside.

He kept up the frantic pace with this thrusts and strokes until she was delirious with desire. She couldn’t think past the way he manipulated her sex. Hard and frenzied, as though he couldn’t satisfy himself enough. As if touching her only increased his ravenous craving instead of sated it.

Before she could draw in her next breath, Hades pushed himself up and nestled his cock at her opening. Reaching down, he pushed her hand away and guided himself into her. His arms shook with strain, his whole body quivering with bottled-up need. She’d never felt him like this before.

Like a man no longer in control. Again something new.

If this was her dream, her remembrance of him, would the variables change so often? Would she not feel exactly how it was with Hades? Why was she dreaming of him like this? Was she acting out some repressed need from him she’d never been able to do in reality?

She opened her mouth to speak, but all that came out was a cry of ecstasy as he plunged into her mercilessly. Wrapping his hands around her legs, he yanked her forward, tilting her pelvis up to meet him. In this position, Kat was splayed wide. Open. Vulnerable.

Stilling his movements, Hades moved his hands over her thighs and pushed her legs back toward the mattress, opening her even more. Once she was completely pinned to the bed, her sex gaping and exposed, he started to thrust again. Harder, faster.

He’d never fucked her like this before. So intensely, so viciously. Like a man bent on proving a point or teaching her a lesson. Was this her guilt playing out in her dreams? Was she punishing herself for allowing Hades to die?

Gripping his arms, she held on for the wild ride. Each thrust sent a sizzling crack of pleasure up her body, as if tendrils of electricity were whipping back and forth over her flesh.

The virus inside was awake and bubbling at the surface, making the sensations more intense, more violent. An explosive orgasm gathered in her belly like a swirling mass of molten lava. It wouldn’t take much more for her to plummet into its rapturous pool and drown. But she wanted to look into Hades’ eyes when she did. To know that he had loved her regardless of all the ridiculous things she had done to him, to them.

Lifting her hand, she placed it on his cheek and tilted up his head to gaze into his eyes. What she saw there froze the blood in her veins. That was no look of love.

She saw a seething anger there, a dark loathing. Not the emotions of the man she’d loved and lost. Even with all she had ever done to Hades, even before they had come together, he had never looked at her like that. Those were not his eyes. They belonged to someone else.

The realization must have shown on her face because he grinned, and his face started to waver.

Started to change.

Kat struggled under his hold. She pushed up with her legs, but he was too strong and held her down, his cock still buried deep inside her sex. Feelings of helplessness and shame washed over her. She had been enjoying this, reveling in it even. Her body still did. Even while she struggled for release, ripples of pleasure continued to surge over her, admitting her body’s betrayal.

“Keep fighting, Katarina. You will come that much harder.”

She glared at him. Glared into his sharp, aristocratic face. A face no longer that of her lover and friend, Hades, but of her worst enemy and nemesis, Baruch. He had fucked her in the worst possible way. He had gotten into her mind and used her love for Hades against her. Used it to, finally, take her mind, body, and soul.

She punched at his arms and raked her nails down his skin. But it did no good. Baruch was too strong, and he liked the pain. It showed in the way his eyes rolled back in ecstasy each time she drew blood. Still he fucked her. Hard. With quick, frantic thrusts. Ramming into her repeatedly until her mind fogged over and she could no longer feel anything but his cock moving inside her cunt.

Biting down on her lip, she tried to think the orgasm away. She didn’t want to come with Baruch inside her. It seemed like the ultimate betrayal of Hades if she did. Although she knew he would never condemn her for it.

Mustering every ounce of strength, Kat punched Baruch in the face. The hit had been powerful enough to still his plunging but not enough to push him away. She raised her hand again. This time Baruch let go of her legs and grabbed one wrist with his hand and pushed the other with his arm, pinning them to the bed. Now she was immobile, with his weight pressing down on her and her arms pinned back.

She pummeled at his legs with the back of her heels, but he just laughed as if she had merely pinched him.

“I love it when we fight. So much sweeter when we make up.” With that, he drove into her, burying his cock so deep she could almost feel it in her throat.

She could hardly breathe as conflicting emotions and sensations swirled around her like a tempest. The molten ball of heat at her center was ready to explode. She could no longer fight even if she wanted to. Her arms and legs wouldn’t listen to her commands. The mounting swells of pleasure were in charge. She could only float along with them, in hopes that she didn’t drown in the torrential aftermath.

Baruch increased his tempo, obviously close to his own climax. His breath came out in rasping pants. Sweat dripped off his face and onto her chest. Finally she could feel the strain in his arms, and he had to lower himself onto her body. Burying his head into her neck, he rammed into her repeatedly in a frenzied pace.