Base Instincts

  “I’m okay,” he said. “I think I’ll always be okay now.”

  Slake grinned. “In that case, I’d say it’s time I deal with my Fayle.”

  “Do you need me there?”

  “Nope.” Slake drew Raze hard against him. “Meet me back at your place. And I want you naked when I get there.”

  There was only one answer to that.

  Duh.

  For the first time in his life, Slake walked into Dire & Dyre’s New York headquarters without an ounce of trepidation.

  He was prepared for a battle to get onto the elevator, but surprisingly, the entrance receptionist sent him to the top floor without an argument. So far, so good.

  When he stepped out of the elevator and into the plush offices that belonged to the Big Boss, Dyre’s goat-horned assistant stopped him. Not unexpected.

  “You’ll have to wait. Mr. Dyre is—”

  “Bite me.” Slake shoved past her and slammed into Dyre’s office.

  Dyre looked up, but if he was annoyed at the intrusion, it didn’t show. “Slake. What a surprise.” He grinned, flashing sharp teeth. “A surprise that you aren’t puking out your insides from the pain of losing your soul.”

  The jackass. “Yeah, well, how about another surprise?” He moved to the desk, planted his fists on the shiny oak top, and leaned in. “I. Quit.” As an afterthought, he added, “Asshole.”

  Dyre’s black eyes rolled like oily marbles in his head. “You can’t quit. I own you.”

  “If you’re talking about my soul, well, even if that were true, you couldn’t stop me from quitting. My body is still mine, no matter who owns my soul.”

  The marbles in Dyre’s eye sockets became ringed with red. Dyre had a short temper, and his inner demon loved to come out to play. It was probably time to de-escalate the situation. But only a little. Slake needed the guy to be agitated for what he had planned.

  “I will kill you and reap your soul long before I allow you to quit.”

  What a dick. “You realize that when your employees are terrified of you, they won’t go that extra mile, right?”

  “They will if they like their skin.” Dyre grinned wider, and Slake swore the number of teeth in his mouth multiplied. They’d also grown sharper. “Or their souls.”

  “Yeah, about that—”

  A silver flash lit up the room, and suddenly Revenant was standing there, his massive black wings, shot through with silver and gold, arched high above his back. If Slake hadn’t met the guy before, he’d be pissing himself. As it was, he still took a step back so he didn’t get brained by the careless flap of a wing.

  “So,” Revenant said, his voice rumbling with such force that the expensive trinkets on the shelves rattled, “it turns out that when you own a soul, you get notified when there’s danger.” Revenant scowled at Dyre. “What were you doing to him?”

  Dyre shoved to his feet. “Who the fuck are you?”

  Revenant gave Slake a withering look of disappointment. “You really gave this douche bag your soul?”

  Abruptly, Dyre’s skin turned black as night and horns jutted from his skull, which began to elongate as his body doubled in size. Very slowly, Slake reached under his jacket for his bloodblade, a Duosos weapon only a male of his species could wield.

  “You dare to insult me?” Dyre roared. “Do you have any idea who I am? What I am?”

  A smile so cold that it dropped the temperature in the room curved Revenant’s lips. “Do you honestly think I care?”

  Every dangerous object in the room activated at once, all of them aimed at Revenant. In a blur of motion, he was pelted by various blunt instruments, struck by rays of melting heat, and impaled by sharp objects. But when it was over, he merely tsked, and everything went back to normal. His clothes stopped smoking, the blood was gone, and there was nothing pointy sticking out of him.

  Dyre’s black skin went ashen. “What the—”

  Revenant lifted Dyre off his feet. And as far as Slake could tell, Rev was using the Force, because the guy hadn’t moved a muscle.

  “I did a little research on you after I talked to Slake. Seems you and Satan were pretty close. He let you do whatever you wanted with the souls you collected as long as you gave him all of your daughters. Is that right?”

  Dyre stopped clawing at his throat long enough to croak, “Yes. I-I’ll offer you the same deal.”

  The laughter that came from Revenant made Slake’s blood freeze in his veins. “You will offer me a deal. Really? Because from where I’m standing . . . well, I’m standing. You, however, are floating in the air and slowly strangling. So let’s try this again.” He flung Dyre into a wall, shattering artwork, pictures, and Dyre’s prized, framed awards and certificates. As the guy scrambled to his feet, Revenant advanced on him. “Here’s the deal I will offer you. Return all the souls you haven’t sold off or used for whatever vile purpose you use them for, and close your law firm.”

  “And what,” Dyre ground out, “do I get in return?”

  “You get to not die.”

  Dyre gaped. “Are you crazy? I can’t give up my practice for nothing!” Dyre’s hand slipped behind his back. Slake opened his mouth to warn Revenant, but there was no need.

  Dyre exploded. Just . . . blew into a cloud of atomized red mist that settled around the office in a gruesome blanket of gore.

  Revenant sighed. “I’ve had to do that a lot lately.”

  Ho-ly. Damn. “What,” Slake muttered, “explode people?”

  Revenant nodded. “Turns out that when you take over Hell, people aren’t all, ‘Hey, he banished Satan, the most evil being ever, so he must be a super-badass.’ Nope, they’re all, ‘Hey, he must have gotten lucky, so let’s see if we can take him down.’” Revenant shrugged. “Exploding people really gets a message across.”

  “I am so never pissing you off.”

  “Wise.” A scroll materialized out of thin air, unrolled, and Slake recognized his signature. It was the deed to his soul. Revenant snapped his fingers, and the thing burst into confetti. “You’re free.”

  “But . . . why?”

  “Because I don’t like being linked to anyone.”

  “Oh. Well, ah, thanks.” He looked at the mess that used to be Dyre and felt sorry for the firm’s janitorial crew. “So I got my soul back, but now I’m out of a job.”

  “Did you like your job?”

  Slake shrugged. “No. But it paid the bills and kept my people from dragging me back to the compound and executing me.”

  “So why did you come here? To kill him and take his position?”

  Slake held up the blade he’d had a white-knuckled grip on for the last few minutes. “I’m not a powerful enough demon to kill him, but I could have—”

  “No way!” Revenant snatched the dagger out of Slake’s hand like a kid who wanted another kid’s candy. “This is a Duosos bloodblade. Do you know how rare they are?”

  “Ah, yeah, I have an idea.”

  “You could have infused the blade with Dyre’s blood and been immune to any move he made against you for a year.”

  “That was the plan,” Slake muttered.

  As Revenant said, bloodblades were rare, made even more so by the fact that each one could be used only once. Slake had planned to neutralize Dyre, and then he’d use the year to gather Dire & Dyre’s scumbag clients for the Justice Dealers. Working with the Dealers to capture Fayle had been eye-opening and exhilarating, and he figured he’d get a kick out of using his skills for good for once.

  Revenant flipped the dagger into the air and caught it between his thumb and forefinger. “Come work for me.”

  “What?” Slake gaped. “Are you serious? I just got out from under the thumb of one powerful psycho . . . er, I mean—”

  “Stop with the flattery.” Revenant held up his hand. “I get it. I used to be Satan’s whipping boy, and it sucks to work for some evil jackass who is fucking insane and can end you with a mere thought.” He folded his wings behind his back, and
a heartbeat later, they disappeared. Must be cool to have wings. “But here’s the deal. I’m the new King of Hell, which means people either suck up to me because they want something, or they think I’m going to explode them, or they want to kill me. I don’t have anyone around me I can trust. You seem to be good at your job, and while I held your soul, I got a feel for who you are. I could use you on my payroll.”

  Slake’s mouth went as dry as the sand in the Blighted Desert. “I appreciate the offer—”

  “But?”

  Slake really wished the guy would stop doing that. “But I won’t kill anyone who doesn’t deserve it. I won’t seduce anyone. I won’t—”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Revenant droned. “You won’t compromise your morals or do anything that’ll piss off your mate. Fine. If you object to a job, you can discuss it with me. I’m not completely unreasonable.” He appeared to reconsider that. “My mate might disagree.”

  Revenant was one weird dude. But Slake liked him. In any case, he could be employed by a lot worse than the King of Hell. “You really know how to sell a job,” Slake said, maybe a little sarcastically. “I’m in.”

  “Good. But I do have one requirement.” Revenant’s expression went grim and serious, and Slake had a feeling that whatever he was going to say was of lethal importance to him. “Never lie to me. Ever. And if I lay down a law, it is to be followed to the letter. Do you understand?”

  “I understand.”

  Revenant held out his hand. “Then welcome aboard.”

  Man, Raze was never going to believe this.

  Raze loved the forest. The trees. The wildlife. The peace.

  And now, six months after Raze said good-bye to his old life, he was moving into his new one.

  Which meant moving in with Slake.

  Giving up the apartment had been easy, but he’d miss seeing Thirst every day. He wouldn’t be away long, though. The new construction was almost finished, and he figured he’d be back to work there within the next month or so. In the meantime, he’d picked up extra hours at the hospital to keep himself busy while Slake was helping Revenant rule Sheoul.

  And talk about a full-time job. Revenant always made sure Slake could get to Raze when needed, but Slake definitely kept busy. Today, however, they were both off work, and they planned to make a relaxing day of it.

  “Breakfast?” Slake’s gravelly morning voice went straight to Raze’s groin. He looked up from his chair on the patio where he’d been sitting in the morning sunshine and listening to the gurgling rush of the creek a few yards away.

  “Did you make some?”

  Slake stumbled outside in nothing but boxer shorts, his sleep-mussed hair giving him a boyishly appealing charm. “I was hoping you did.”

  “Asshole,” Raze said, hiding his smile in his coffee mug. His insult earned him a lingering kiss and a light but promising stroke of Slake’s hand over Raze’s rapidly swelling cock.

  But Slake was a fucking tease. Grinning wickedly, he plopped into the chair across from Raze and sprawled in the sunshine, not a care in the world. He’d changed a lot in the last few months, losing the guarded wariness he’d worn like a suit of armor when they’d first met, and finally letting himself laugh. And play. And trust.

  “Revenant said I can have a week off.” Slake raised his face to the cloudless blue sky, a smile curving lips that could make Raze beg. “Can you get some vacation time?”

  Shifting to give his erection more room in his shorts, Raze sipped his coffee. “Sure. Why?”

  Slake shrugged. “I’ve never been on a vacation with anyone. You know, sun, sand, the ocean. I figure we can go somewhere exotic. And then hole up in our room and—”

  “Fuck our brains out?”

  Slake’s eyes darkened, and Raze’s cock got harder. He didn’t need sex for another six hours or so, but he wanted it, and that was something completely new. Well, new since he’d met Slake.

  “I was thinking . . . maybe we could try that mating thing you keep talking about it.”

  Raze choked on his coffee. Just a little. But still. “Mating? You want to mate with me? Like, I’ll be tied to you until one of us dies? That mating?”

  Slake braced his elbows on his spread legs and leaned forward even as his voice lowered to an intimate purr. “When you put it that way . . . yeah.”

  A flurry of emotions washed over Raze, but he couldn’t grab on to one. It was as if he was happy and panicked and angry that it might not be possible, all at once.

  Bonding. Damn. It was a mating ritual that, until now, had only been something Seminus demons did with females. Would it even be possible with a male? With a female, the bond was pretty much a one-way street, allowing the female to control the reins. She gained a dermoire that matched her mate’s, but on the opposite arm, while the male . . . well, that’s where the bond truly rested. A bonded male could never have sex with anyone else as long as his mate lived. To bond with someone was a major commitment. A life commitment, and given that his lifespan ran hundreds of years . . .

  “Hey,” Slake said quietly. “We don’t have to. I know the thing with Fayle was fucked up, and if I were you, I wouldn’t let the word bond into my vocabulary. But I was just thinking—”

  “No, I want to,” Raze blurted, because the hell if he was going to let this opportunity slip through his fingers. “I do. It’s just that I don’t know if it’s possible between two males.”

  “We can have sex, and before you met me, that wasn’t supposed to be possible, either. We won’t know until we try.”

  True. But it was a huge step.

  Beyond huge.

  And it was a no-brainer.

  Raze had been waiting all his life for Slake, and now that he had him, he wasn’t letting him go.

  He stood and held out his hand to the magnificent male who had given him so much. Slake’s hand closed around his, and together they made their way to the bedroom. They peeled off their shorts, and in a rare moment of awkwardness, they faced each other, naked in more ways than one.

  “How does this work?” Slake asked, his voice deep and eager, and Raze’s body responded with a rush of endorphins that said this was right. Everything about this was right.

  “I don’t know . . .” Actually, Raze did know. His instincts were rising in him, telling him what to do next, and without thinking, he reached for the blade Slake always kept on the nightstand.

  “Your eyes,” Slake breathed. “They’re pure gold. I know they get that way when you’re turned on, but this . . . Wow.”

  Raze stepped into him so they were chest to chest, and with a desperation he couldn’t explain, he took Slake’s mouth, licking at the seam of his lips until Slake let him in.

  As they fell to the bed, Raze slashed the sharp edge of the blade across his chest. The pain was sharp but fleeting, dulled by the anticipation of what was coming next.

  “You need to drink,” he murmured against Slake’s mouth. “Now.”

  Slake didn’t hesitate. The scent of his arousal drifted up to Raze, kicking his own arousal up a notch as Slake kissed his way down Raze’s neck, lingering only to nip his collarbone and make Raze growl with pleasure. But the moment Slake’s mouth closed on the cut he’d made, the pleasure became so intense that he didn’t think he’d survive it.

  “Raze,” Slake whispered against his skin. “Damn, you taste . . . good.” He dragged his tongue along the length of the cut as Raze reached for the lube.

  “Now,” Raze moaned. “I need to be inside you now. But you have to do it. You have to be willing.”

  Slake looked up, confused, but a heartbeat later, he was drizzling a cool stream of lube on Raze’s hard cock with one hand and fondling his balls with the other. Sweet, sweet agony rippled upward from Raze’s groin. As always, Slake’s touch was magic. He intuitively knew what Raze wanted and how he wanted it, how hard, how fast, how deep, and Raze could only imagine that if the bonding worked, they’d be even more in sync. The possibilities were endless and almost incomprehens
ible.

  Every muscle in Slake’s arms rippled under his supple skin as he crawled up Raze’s body, kissing and licking along every inch of the journey. His dark eyes glowed with need as he gazed down at Raze, and damned if Raze didn’t swell with emotion. He loved Slake with every cell in his body, and if that wasn’t good enough for a bond, he didn’t know what was.

  Slowly, gently, Slake eased back onto Raze’s erection. Ecstasy engulfed Raze as Slake seated himself fully and began to move, his hot, tight ass clenching with every stroke.

  Raze barely had the presence of mind to lift the dagger off the mattress. “You need to cut yourself. Right wrist. I have to drink.”

  If Raze thought Slake would balk, he’d been dead wrong. In a single, smooth motion, Slake slashed the blade across his wrist and held it to Raze’s mouth.

  Warm, silky blood dripped onto Raze’s tongue, and holy shit, he might as well have plugged into an electrical socket, because his body began to spark and tingle. He’d become a live wire, connected to Slake in a way he couldn’t have anticipated. Couldn’t have even hoped for because he hadn’t known such a feeling existed.

  On the verge of orgasm, he twined his fingers with Slake’s, Raze’s right hand with Slake’s left. As he drew on Slake’s vein, a current cycled through them, and Raze felt everything Slake was feeling. There was affection, warmth, respect, love. They were connected in so many ways, and it was so . . . right.

  “Raze,” Slake gasped. “Aw, damn, I can . . . feel you.” He rocked against Raze, his entire body turning into a storm of sex and passion that couldn’t be contained.

  Raze took a deep pull on Slake’s wrist as ecstasy launched him over the edge. He threw his head back and arched into Slake, slamming him forward so hard he had to brace himself against the wall. Plaster rained down on Raze’s head, but he barely noticed, too lost in the full-body orgasm that wouldn’t end.

  Distantly, he heard Slake shout as Raze pumped into him. Hot, wet splashes struck his chest, his neck, his chin. The musky scent of Slake’s cum coated his skin and drove Raze to new heights.