Released (Eternal Balance) (12 page)

Chapter Nineteen

Azirak/Jax

“You believe me now.”

The demon hovered across the room as tendrils of black smoke swirled around its—
my
—shadowy face. Azi was right. I believed it. I hadn’t wanted to at first, but the truth was like a tornado now, knocking down my door and threatening to tear away my house.

I was going to die.

“How long?”

“Not long now.” It drifted from the corner and stopped in front of me. Its head tilted from side to side, and I was able to catch a glimpse of detail—the curve of my chin and several locks of hair. I’d rather have cut it, but Sam seemed to like it longer, so the demon left it alone. “I am sorry.”

The funny thing was, the bastard actually sounded sorry. Even in the white room, I felt what it felt. The demon expressed true remorse—not that it fucking helped. I needed a solution. A way to work this out so it didn’t end in oblivion. I didn’t need pity.

“Okay,” I said, resigned. I would either spend my last hours, minutes, whatever, attempting to fix this, or I’d be with her. “Is your offer still on the table?”

“I will return control over to you for the time you have remaining.” It drifted back into the corner, enough of the smoke dissipating so that I could see its lips moving. “You can say good-bye.”

I wasn’t ready to say good-bye.

Standing, I nodded. “You’ll let me keep it until the end? No matter what?”

“Yes—but I fear that will not be long. A day at best. Possibly less.” The smoke around my shadowy self thickened again until it was nothing more than a churning maelstrom. “But remember there is a task to complete. That has not changed. If we do not get to the stone before Zenak, there will be nothing I can do to keep Samantha Merrick safe.”

“I know.” I sucked in a breath and held it. If it was the last thing I did on this earth, I would make sure she stayed safe. “Do it.”

…

When I opened my eyes, I was aware of two things. One, it was still dark, and two, I wasn’t alone. I sucked in a breath and detected a familiar scent in the air. Sam mumbled something, still deep asleep, and scooted closer. For a second, I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.

I moved slowly, careful not to jostle her, and wrapped my arm around her waist. She felt like heaven. Like home and peace. I leaned close to breathe her in. She’d left the light on across the room, and I could see tufts of emotion rising into the air. There wasn’t any one particular color. They were jumbled—which I’d found was pretty normal for sleepers unless they were having a dream.

We lay like that, for how long I wasn’t sure, but Sam stirred first. She stretched and, when she went to shift, froze. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“I didn’t put you here. Looks like you crawled into bed with me.” I lifted my hand and laid it against her cheek.

“I wasn’t the one who put your damn hand—” She tensed. “You’re—it’s warm,” she whispered. With a sharp intake of breath, she shifted around so that we were face to face.

“Come on,” I said, running my index finger across her bottom lip. “Warm, Sammy?
Really?
I’m fucking volcanic and you know it.”

“It’s a trick,” she said. There was the slightest tremor in her voice as she shook her head once. She threw off the covers and eyed me as she scrambled into a sitting position. Her colors were red, but there were ribbons of pink. Of hope. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

A stream of lavender swirled around her. Guilt. “Azi did
trick
you, Sammy. What happened at the cabin wasn’t your fault.”

“Nothing happened,” she countered, the swirl of emotion growing just a bit thicker.

The demon had played on her emotions and used them as a weapon. I didn’t blame her at all, but a part of me was still jealous. And hot as fuck.

I was there for every touch, every moan. I felt the sensation of being pressed against her, her skin beneath my fingers and her lips on mine, all while incapacitated. I’d felt the painful build up that came without release. Those moments in the cabin rushed back to me in vivid detail, cranked the temperature in the room to just above blistering, and made me hard in an instant.

“I don’t know how long I have.” My voice was hoarse, rough with need.

It wasn’t a lie. Azi said it didn’t know how long my essence would hold on. An hour. Two? Twenty-four? Yeah, we had a job to do, but there was time to kill. Time I intended to use well.

There was nothing standing in our way. For the first time, there wasn’t a demon fighting for control. Azi was still there, but it had settled in the background, honoring our deal. It didn’t need to be front and center to be with Sam. It felt what I did, experienced everything my body did. There was no power struggle. And I didn’t have to worry about accidentally claiming an energy that could send the balance of the universe sprawling on its ass. There was just Sam—and me.

“It
is
you…” She watched me for a moment before bringing her hand to my face. “But Azi said—how is this possible?”

“Does it fucking matter?” I leaned in, took her face into my hands, and guided her closer. I kissed her with every intention of making it a slow burn. The first time we’d been together, it had been frantic. Desperate and raw—which had been amazing. But in those few seconds after our lips met this time, I came to a conclusion. There was no such thing as a slow burn when it came to Sam.

Everything about her set me on fire, and restraint was impossible.

She moaned into my mouth and tugged on my bottom lip, and I fucking lost it. I gripped her hips and dug my fingers into handfuls of denim. In the back of my mind, a tiny voice said I should pace myself. Exercise some control.

Fuck that.

She gasped as I hefted her onto the middle of the bed and swung my leg around to settle over her left leg. I slipped an arm beneath her right knee and lifted so that her leg was high in the air, above my head, which gave me unfettered access to her. She gasped as I ground myself against her.

A husky laugh escaped her. “That feels much better without clothing.” She caught me off guard as she hooked her raised leg around my shoulders and knocked me sideways. As I readjusted, she hopped off the bed and started backing toward the far wall. The grin on her face almost made me explode right then and there. “But what makes you think that’s what I want?”

The swirl of orange in the air, coupled with the spark of desire I saw in her eyes, destroyed any illusions of control I had. I was off the bed and across the room before any of it even registered. “You want it,” I said, and I ran the tip of my tongue up the side of her neck. When I came to her ear, I nibbled the tip as I dropped my hands down to get rid of her jeans.

But I wasn’t fast enough. She shoved me away and unfastened them herself, then kicked the denim off in a single, graceful move before going to work on my own. She inched them down, frustratingly slow, took my underwear along for the ride, and then reversed our positions by spinning me up against the wall. I grabbed her, desperate to taste her again, but she resisted and settled on her knees.

“Holy…fuck…” I sucked in a lungful of air and gritted my teeth as she took the tip of me into her mouth. Her tongue rolled slow, languid circles over my sensitive skin. I tried to push forward, desperate to relieve the building pressure, but Sam had other plans.

Her throaty laugh confirmed my suspicion that she was intent on making me suffer. Blissful agony spread like fire, licking every single part of me. A hand on either side of my hips, her fingers raked down, and her nails dug into my skin to keep me still. She held me at bay, and I groaned. Her mouth drove me closer and closer to the brink as her tongue slid up and down my length. My head fell back against the wall. She was trying to kill me. Suck me right into oblivion and fry my brain.

That wouldn’t do.

I gasped. She pulled back, and her teeth grazed along my skin as she went. It was all I could take. I wound my hands around bunches of her hair and dragged her up. “I wanted this to be different,” I said with a growl. I lifted her and crossed the room. “To take it slow.”

She wrapped her legs tight around my waist and trailed a line of kisses down my neck and across my shoulder. Her fingernails scored my back, leaving sizzling trails of fire in their wake. “Screw slow.”

I set her down, never breaking contact. My hands were everywhere, sliding across her stomach and down the sides of her legs, up her arms and over her breasts. I teased each nipple to full attention. Her warm, soft skin was like a match to my tinder. Her reaction to my touch, the small, breathy moans that caused goose bumps to erupt along my skin, was the most amazing thing I’d ever heard. At the feel of her beneath me, a savage satisfaction I knew was only partly from the demon inside, rose up to engulf me.

I’d wanted to make her beg, to tease her to the brink of sanity, to have her desperate and pleading until I was sure she could no longer survive without me inside her. But I was the one who teetered on the threshold of lucidity. That’s what this girl did to me. She brought out the best in me—and the worst. The purest light and the utter savagery that lived in my soul. She coaxed out the beast, and God help me, she liked it.

Fucking
loved
it.

I buried myself inside her with a single, powerful stroke. She gasped and arched into me, clawed my shoulders in an attempt to pull me closer. I resisted. I wouldn’t miss a second of this—of her head thrown back, of her lips parted and her chest heaving, moving perfectly supple twin peaks in the most amazing fucking way. God… She was the definition of perfection. My hands went to her breasts. Kneading, relishing the exquisite feel, I gently twisted her nipples as my movement, almost demoniac in nature, caused a mind-blowing crest to build.

A round of images from Azi barreled through my mind. Its view of things, its frenzied desires and raw lust mingled with my own, goading me to thrust harder. Faster. I grabbed Sam’s hands and pinned them above her head, giving in to the demon’s need for dominance. To the very basic, primal urge to control.

Sam cursed, and her eyes squeezed closed as she bucked against the bed. Her fingers knotted in the comforter and pulled at the material. A soft tearing sound filling the air. I thrust harder. Faster. I was possessed by the moment, lost in the euphoric electricity that was building inside me. I felt the tide rise inside her, and the pulsating wave of her total release coaxed my own right along with it. I rode the sensation, the feel of it like a meteor exploding inside me, detonating, splitting me in half. I clenched my jaw tight against it and let the wave roll over me. It washed away everything in its path. The doubt and fear and concern. In that moment, there was nothing but Sam. There was nothing but complete satisfaction and utter contentment.

Chapter Twenty

Sam

“That was…” I shuddered, still trying to get my breathing under control. Jax had settled and tucked me under his arm. “Yeah. I don’t know that the English language has a word for what that was.”

He laughed, a deep, dark sound that sent a cascade of tingles through me. “Careful, Sammy. You’ll inflate my ego.”

I snuggled closer and threw my arm around his waist. “What? You mean more than it already is? Is that even possible? I mean, the building has to have some kind of weight restriction.”

He was quiet for a moment. “Are you sure I didn’t—things got a little out of control. Azi’s still in here and—”

I pushed myself up, rested against my elbow, and kissed his cheek. The warmth beneath my lips was a thing from heaven. “I love me some out of control.” I settled back down beside him, totally content. “We kind of got, um, preoccupied, but tell me what happened. How were you able to take back control?”

He sat up and pinned me with a smoldering grin. “No-can-do.”

“Why?” Alarm bells sounded, and I made a move to sit up, but he stopped me.

“Because…” He traced the line of my jaw down to my collarbone. “I’m still feeling preoccupied.”

…

Jax had taken his time and explored every inch of me in an attempt to cure his
preoccupation
. Eventually he found the cure, and holy crap was it a doozy. His idea of a remedy involved him covering my mouth, afraid my impassioned screams would alert management to our private little party. He’d been quite pleased with himself when he finished—as he should have been. The guy was amazing, and the things he could do with his hands? With his
mouth
? Some things should be illegal, or at the very least, registered as a form of physical warfare.

By the time he’d finished with me, I wasn’t sure I could walk, much less form a coherent sentence. We’d cleaned up and begrudgingly slipped into our clothes before curling back up on the bed and drifting off.

Now I was lingering in that place you go, somewhere between actually opening your eyes, and drifting deeper into dreamland. It felt much warmer in the room than it had before—and that was saying something. Almost like someone had turned on the heat and the blower was aimed right at my face.

I shifted—or, at least, tried. My arm wouldn’t budge. Jax must have rolled over in his sleep and pinned it to the bed. That, or he’d done it on purpose to keep me from escaping. Since my doing that was about as unlikely as rainbow shitting monkeys, I’d have to wake him up. I’d lost all feeling in the limb.

Without opening my eyes, I poked him. His chest, an arm? I wasn’t sure, but it was warm flesh—warm,
human controlled
flesh—and the thought sent a ripple of happiness through me. “Jax?”

“Mmmm,” he grumbled.

“Come on.” I poked him again. “We should get going.”

The bed jostled and I cringed. He’d gotten up. That meant
I
had to get up. Logically I knew we had to go, but I was so damn comfortable.

“I’m starving,” I said, opening my eyes. “We should stop—” The second my vision came into focus, it became impossible to move air in and out of my lungs. In fact, all bodily functions ceased. My muscles tightened, and every inch of me froze, paralyzed by the sight of the massive carnivus essentially straddling me.

Beside me, Jax groaned. He hadn’t moved, hadn’t opened his eyes. The movement had come from the beast. “How about you go get food and bring it back, and I’ll guard the room. Someone should make sure this bed doesn’t make a run for it.”

Above me, the carnivus was silent. Its lips were pulled back, teeth bared and ready to tear us apart. I didn’t know what to do. If I moved, it would strike. If I spoke again, it might strike. Shit. If I took another breath, it might strike. This had “no win” written all over it.

“We’re not alone, are we?” came Jax’s response to my silence. My answer was more silence. The thing was staring down at me. I didn’t dare flinch. “We’re okay, Sammy. Just…just give me a sec.”

Give him a sec? For what? To try reasoning with the thing? What the hell was he going to—

The carnivus shot sideways, off the bed and into the wall. I scrambled upright. Jax had kicked it. He grabbed my hand, grip like iron, and dragged me from the bed. I tried to keep up but tripped as he yanked open the door and barreled through.

An unholy howl split the air, and something inside the room shattered. The sound was followed by an explosion of wood and splinters as the beast emerged from the building. It crashed through the doorway and took pieces of the frame with it.

“Go!” Jax roared. He jerked me into motion again and almost ripped my arm from its socket. We raced toward Van’s car, but with about twelve feet to go, another carnivus landed smack in the middle of our path. We couldn’t go through it. There was no going back. So we detoured and raced for the wooded lot next to the motel.

“We can’t outrun them,” I huffed. I wasn’t in bad shape, but I couldn’t boast an athlete’s stamina, either. With the injuries Jax’s body had sustained in yesterday’s attack, this pace wasn’t going to last.

“I know,” he snapped. “I fucking know!”

We kept going, weaving between the trees and brush. Jax jumped over a fallen tree and landed gracefully on the other side, while I stumbled and face-planted in the dirt with a mouthful of leaves. He dragged me upright and kept going without missing a beat.

“Here.” He skidded to a stop in front of a large, spindly pine tree. “Go. Climb!”

I did as requested but couldn’t manage to get my feet onto the first branch. “I can’t,” I said, shaking. “We have to fight.”

The look in his eyes was haunted. Panic like I’d never seen was etched in his features. He glanced up at the tree, then turned his attention to the woods for a moment before focusing on me. “You know I love you, right?”

“What?” Everything stilled.

“I love you, Sammy, and when it comes down to you and me, I will
always
choose you.”

“You’re scaring me.” It was more the look in his eyes than the words he spoke. There was a grave finality, something he was purposely avoiding saying.

“I’ll hold them off. Run.” He grabbed my arm and tried to move me away from the tree.

I shoved him away. “What aren’t you telling me?” I demanded.

Another howl filtered through the woods and Jax cursed. With a growl, he wrapped his hands around my waist and hefted me up so I could reach the first branch. Once I made it several higher, he clawed his way to me.

“They better not be able to fucking climb.”

“Screw the carnivi,” I said. “Tell me what the hell is going on. You’re injured, I get it, but it’s more than that. You’re terrified.”

He opened his mouth—to tell me the truth or spew some other bullshit, I didn’t know—but the tree jerked sideways. I grabbed the branch, hands covered in sap, and held tight. On the ground, the two carnivi were running, head first, into the trunk of the tree.

“This is a particularly sticky situation.” We both jumped as Heckle, now sitting a branch below us, wiped a smear of sap across the knee of his worn blue jeans. He nodded to Jax. “Nice to see you’re still with us.”

“Do something,” Jax said with a snarl. I watched, waiting for his eyes to flicker, or at least rim with black like they did when he got angry and the demon grew agitated, but they didn’t. They stayed solid gray.

“I can’t,” Heckle replied. He didn’t look sorry about it, either. “Not without a trade.”

“A trade?” I repeated, stunned. We were literally up a tree with the hounds of hell nipping at our heels and he wanted to play let’s make a deal?

“My hands are tied, Sam.” That time he actually did look sorry. A little. “There are rules. I’m forbidden to interfere without the proper bal—”

“Don’t,” Jax said and smashed his fist against the tree. The surrounding branches shuddered, and I cringed. “Do not fucking say
balance
.”

The carnivi had stopped ramming the tree and were circling the bottom like vultures. Occasionally one would glance upward, snarling, and chomp at the air several times in anticipation. At this point, they’d simply have to outwait us. We’d pass out from hunger, exhaustion, or exposure, and drop right into their wide open mouths.

“The rules state I cannot interfere. I am unable to provide you with an edge unless you offer something to tip the scales back.”

“The rules,” I repeated. “But didn’t
you
make the rules? Break them for fuck’s sake!”

“Believe it or not, I didn’t make the rules. I only enforce them. If it were up to me…”

Jax looked down, then fixed his gaze on Heckle. “What do you want?”

“What do you have?” The bartender waggled his eyebrows, and I could tell Jax just about lost it.

“What we have,” Jax said, tone threatening, “is certain death, waiting at the bottom. Of. This. Fucking. Tree.”

“What is it you want?” I tried. I didn’t think Heckle would leave us stranded here because Jax threw attitude, but I didn’t want to take the chance.

“A soul,” came his unexpected reply.

“A soul?” I repeated, not understanding. “What does that even mean?”

“I want a soul,” Heckle repeated. “Well, to clarify, I want part of a soul.”

“You want part of a soul…?” I asked, confused. With a quick glance at the ground, I said a silent prayer that he made this fast. The tree wasn’t going to hold up to much more abuse.

“Even clearer,” Heckle said with a slight frown. “I want a part of
your
soul.”

My soul? What good would it do him now? Once a Pure died, their soul—and the energy inside it—was up for grabs, to be used for good or evil depending on who managed to get their grubby hands on it first. But that wouldn’t happen when I died. My soul had already been claimed.

“I know what you’re thinking.” He stole a glance at the carnivi below. “And no, I do not wish to steal your power. I have my own reasons—reasons that I can assure you contribute to balance.”

I looked at Jax.

His mouth fell open. “You cannot seriously be considering—”

“Fine,” I said before he could get the rest out. From the start, Heckle had claimed his motivations were to keep balance, but the more light we shone on them, the sketchier things got. But we didn’t have a choice. There was no other way out of this tree. “I agree. Get us the hell out of here!”