To Summon a Demon (6 page)

And she finally demanded, “What the hell do you want from me?”

Gaap observed dispassionately as Lili put on a show of wrath. She swayed, her hands clenched in front of her as if she was going to punch him in the jaw. Her face was white with anger and he wondered if she had access to her dagger.

The soft contrasting scent of lavender drifted through his senses but underneath lay the metallic odor of his blood.

He frowned.

An inordinate amount of blood coated her hands.

Gaap glanced down at his abdomen, then back up at Lili just as her eyes rolled back in her head.

He leapt from the soft worn quilt and caught her before she hit the uneven plank floor. For as tall as she was, her body was surprisingly slight.

Face pale, lips bloodless, she lay quiet in his arms. He gently set her down on the bed.

He ran his hands over her sleek biceps and strong forearms before searching the concentration of blood at her wrist for a wound.

Gaap rolled up the soft cotton of her sleeve and found the source of blood. The small puncture would have been barely noticeable in the heat of the battle but untended, the consequences could have been dire.

Could still be. Gaap noted with a growing consternation the amount of blood that had soaked into her dress and cloak.

His body's natural ability to heal had already activated. He could feel his own blood increasing, pumping through him and restoring the balance in his system. The electrical pulses that had disrupted his body were already normalizing. He’d be as good as new in another few hours.

He cleaned the blood off her limp arm, marveling at the fragile bones of her wrist.

“Is this a trick?” he murmured to the unconscious woman, though it made him feel very foolish.

“Awaken.” He shook her arm, all the while noting her lips were still bloodless, her face unnaturally pale in the flickering firelight.

He placed a hand over her forehead. Her skin was clammy and his fingers came away slicked with sweat.

Her breathing became more shallow. He leaned over her and breathed in the unique scent of Lili.

And he realized he wasn’t quite ready to let her go. Gaap knew he was about to break a major doctrine of the Demon world.

Blood continued to ooze from the puncture wound. He examined the innocuous hole and the blood that stiffened the sleeve of her dress. She’d been bleeding the entire time she helped him back to this refuge.

He had to stop the flow before she bled to death.

Hesitation held him motionless as he weighed the options. And finally, he made the only choice he could. She would die if he didn’t stop the flow of blood.

He lifted her wrist to his mouth. Paused one more time. This was forbidden.

Gaap curled his tongue around her wrist and pressed lightly against the thready beat of her pulse.

He kept his tongue wrapped around her delicate wrist until he was sure the wound had sealed completely.

He could be sanctioned for this action. However, who would know? Even if they found out, he could argue she was a valuable source. She’d been in contact with the Fae. With the outright attack on him, their enemy had clearly escalated their attempts to hurt the Demon bastions.

Gaap efficiently tied gauze around her wrist, the off-white cotton barely noticeable on her fragile skin. He pulled the chair from the table over to the bed. He straddled the hard seat and surveyed the woman who had summoned him.

Conflicting emotions battered him. He
should
kill her. But he couldn’t. Instead he’d saved her.

He couldn’t bear the thought of her death. This indecision was totally illogical.

As he stared at the blood on her clothes, panic spurted through him. What if the small puncture wound wasn’t the only one? He needed to check her for other wounds.

Gaap stripped off her cloak and dress and searched for any other signs of injury. He clinically examined every inch of her skin, careful to make sure she wasn’t bleeding elsewhere.

Studiously, he ignored the soft, pale perfection of her skin. The sensitive crease of her elbow and the delicate hollow behind her knee. While he searched with an exquisite thoroughness, he gently caressed her body.

By the time he finished, his body was sheened with a layer of sweat. His cock was a painful rod, pulsing with a powerful need for release. The temptation of her body lured him like a siren lured the ships to their destruction.

A knock at the door startled him out of his voyeuristic caressing of her curves. Gaap drew the patchwork quilt over Lili’s body.

“It’s only us.” Zepar walked through the previously locked door. He paused to stare at Lil's prone form. For some odd reason, Gaap felt an inexplicable need to protect her from the Demon’s gaze.

He shifted purposefully to draw Zepar’s attention back to him. “Where the hell were you?”

Zepar frowned and stepped toward Gaap. “You’re injured.”

Gaap brushed aside the concern with a flick of his hand. “We were attacked in the clearing where Lili was attacked.”

“Where she was supposedly attacked.” Zepar contradicted. “I don’t trust her.”

Until a few moments ago neither had Gaap. But the proof was in the injury she’d sustained while defending him.

Perhaps they were both wrong.

He kept his face expressionless. But his body instinctively readied for a fight. To defend her as she’d defended him.

“Are you well?” Zepar had noted Gaap’s tense muscles. His friend intuited that Gaap was ready to fight. Over this human.

“I’ll live,” Gaap responded drily. “Why weren’t you there?”

Zepar paced around the small cabin. Where Gaap hadn’t been feeling the small size of the structure before, Zepar’s nervous movements started tension crawling up Gaap’s spine.

“We followed you. But all of the sudden, you disappeared.”

“Glamour.” Gaap spit out.

“We should have been able to find you, even if we couldn’t locate her.” Leraye paced to the sink and then back toward the table again. “But it was as if you both had vanished.”

Some magick was afoot here. The big question remained, was Lili a pawn or a player? Gaap sat on the patchwork quilt next to Lili. The compulsion to stroke her arm, to watch her chest rise and fall, was like a spell.

Leraye said, “We need to go.”

“I am not leaving her.” Gaap cursed his unruly tongue. “Just yet. When she wakes, after I question her, I’ll return to the castle.”

Zepar eased down on the side of the bed and leaned toward Lili. With a gentle brush of his fingers over her lips, he glanced up at Gaap. “Let me seduce the truth from her.” He stroked his hand over the curve of her bare shoulder and Gaap fought the urge to fist his hands.

Zepar was merely offering his services. Gods knew that if Zepar wanted to seduce a human, she would melt under his sexual attentions.

In a normal situation Gaap would have suggested the idea himself.

But he didn’t want Zepar’s cock anywhere near his Lili. He knew if he confessed those feelings to Leraye and Zepar, there would be hell to pay, so he searched for the argument that would make the most sense. “She summoned
me
.”

Leraye said, “Which is why I don’t like it. You were assaulted because of her.”

Gaap understood, but he didn’t agree anymore. “She attacked the Fae and defended me.”

He stared at her delicate features, almost pixie-like in their fragility. Her body was lithe under thin cotton sheet.

“Do not be deceived by her appearance,” Leraye cautioned.

Zepar argued, “Could all be to gain your trust.”

“She nearly perished.” Gaap gestured to the dried blood that stained her dress. “I will not leave her until she is conscious and able to defend herself. I refuse to leave her defenseless.”

“But--”

“Non-negotiable.” Gaap’s voice was as hard as his muscles. He would not be swayed.

“I must recommend you leave.” Leraye trailed off as if he finally realized Gaap was adamant.

“You forget yourself.” Gaap played his ruler card. Most of the time he didn’t pull his rank as a Prince, but technically he was Leraye’s commander. And in this situation he would exert his will.

Lili had watched over him, now he would watch over her.

And just in case Leraye and Zepar had thought that Gaap had completely lost his mind, he reminded them. “We can’t take her back to the castle. And I don’t want to leave her unprotected while she is unconscious.”

“Understood.” Leraye nodded slowly. He pointed to Zepar. “You keep surveillance over the exterior. In case any enemies approach.”

“Just keep your distance.” Zepar blurted out as if he couldn’t help himself from warning Gaap away from Lili.

“Absolutely.” Not a chance in hell, Gaap thought.

“Excellent.” Zepar left.

Gaap waited for Leraye to leave. Leraye's regard shifted from Gaap to Lili and he stared hard at the gauze around her wrist. Finally, Leraye lifted his knowing gaze to Gaap and spoke. “If you won’t leave then I am compelled to stay here.”

Gods, he wanted to argue. But he knew that Leraye was right. He might want to trust her, but that didn't mean she was trustworthy.

“Fine. But cloak yourself with glamour. And do not reveal yourself.”

Leraye eased down onto the plank floor near the stove and rested his back against the wall as if he understood that Gaap wanted him as far away from Lili as possible.

Suddenly the lethargy that accompanied Gaap’s healing magick stole over him. He wanted to lie with Lili while his body regenerated. “I must rest.”

“Restrain her first.”

Warmth surrounded her in a protective cocoon.

Fire crackled and popped in the hearth. Lili lay on her side facing the fireplace, her arm tucked under the pillow. An inferno of heat wrapped around her waist and anchored her to a heavily muscled body.

Puffs of breath feathered along her exposed neck, scattering goosebumps across her skin. The sense of rightness, of solidness, of perfection stole through her.

Lili smiled dreamily, thinking it had been so long since she’d woken to the heat of a male behind her. Oh, how she’d missed this. The steady throb of his erection pulsed into the crease of her butt. The urge to rub against him grew to nearly a compulsion.

She smiled again and decided the time was right to take advantage of that lovely morning erection. But first, she had to move. She trailed her fingers up a very muscular, hairy thigh, and traveled toward the source of the pulsing. Suddenly her arm caught and she was unable to move.

At that moment, Lili registered the weight of something around her right wrist and another heavier weight around her ankle.

Her eyelids popped open.

The bronze skin of the forearm around her waist was nothing like Brian’s fairness. Then she registered the broader chest and the thicker, more muscular thigh behind her.

Lili whipped to her back and used her left hand to push the hair away from her face. She realized immediately that she was in her bed with Gaap the Demon.

And she was tied down. Up. Whatever.

Tied
.

Her gaze shot to Gaap. He had risen up on one elbow. The rich burnished copper of his overly long hair was tousled from his nap. In. Her. Bed.

“How are you feeling?” His voice rumbled through his chest and vibrated along her side where their flesh met in a very intimate contact.

“Like I’m tied up.” And naked. An idiot wouldn’t mistake the rage in her voice for anything else.

Lili clenched her fingers into fists. The urge to hit him was overwhelmingly strong.

He grinned, the white of his teeth flashing in the tanned swarthy dark of his face. “True.”

She noted the bandage around her left wrist. “What the hell did you do to me?”

He ignored her demand and wrapped his fingers around her forearm. He drew her arm toward him and looked intently at her appendage. “How are you feeling?”

The question seemed genuine. And while the concern in his gaze could be faked, why bother?

Lili blinked. Took stock. Weak. She felt weak. And tied up. “Tired.”

“You were injured.”

“So you decided to tie me up?” Lili snapped. “‘Cause, yeah, that’s logical.”

“Apparently I should have gagged you too.” He grinned again.

Gaap threaded his fingers through her hair. His fingertips rested lightly on her scalp and sent electric pulses to every nerve ending in her body. Everything tingled.

Places she’d thought long dead, flared to life as he lazily brushed his thumb back and forth across her eyebrow. With each brush, his body seemed closer, but what should have seemed menacing only felt as if he were sheltering her with his body.

His very ripped body.

Muscles rippled in his bicep as he moved his thumb over her face. His breath floated across her mouth. He drew so close she could see the striations of gold and hazel in the whiskey brown of his eyes.

Lili’s breath shortened. Her brain stuttered and all she could think about was his full sensual lips devouring hers.

The rage over the injustice drained out of her in a whoosh, and the indignation that propelled her slipped away. “Just try gagging me, pal.” Even she could hear the surrender in her voice.

She could think of a far better way to gag her. As if he’d heard the tease, Gaap closed that last inch between them.

Instead of fitting his lips to hers, he gently kissed the corner of her mouth. Confusing her. He continually threw her off balance, and as someone who prided herself on being in control, the sensation was not pleasant.

He softly kissed the other side of her mouth. Nuzzled the sensitive skin behind her ear. He slid the wet heat of his tongue down her neck before his lips closed over the juncture of her neck and shoulder and sent shivers along her spine.

She wanted his mouth. On hers. Now.

“Gimme.” She tried to force his mouth back up to hers.

But he would not be persuaded. He licked her body in long lazy laps, as if savoring the essence of her through her skin. He slowly, agonizingly slowly, tasted his way back up to her face.

His breath was hot against her mouth as finally the tip of his tongue traced the outline of her lips.