Base Instincts

  “Depends.” He silently encouraged Slake to lick him again, but he settled for the gentle stroke of his palm along his arm. Gods, how long had it been since someone had touched him like that? “Most Seminus demons need sex several times a day.”

  Slake’s hand froze. “Holy shit. How do you guys get anything done?”

  Raze chuckled, but the sound of a siren outside reminded him of the tragedy that had led to this, and he sobered. He wasn’t sure why losing his friend, co-workers, and the club he’d grown to feel as comfortable in as his own apartment had made him want to lose himself in Slake, but it wasn’t something he was ready to explore.

  “The frequency reduces as we get older or after we take a mate. Frequency is also affected by our mother’s species.” He bit back a contented sigh as Slake resumed the stroking. “I don’t know what species my mother was, but she must have been a species with a slow metabolism or that doesn’t breed often, because I can go twelve to sixteen hours without sex, but things start getting uncomfortable after about thirteen or fourteen.”

  “Do Seminus demons take on many traits of your mother’s species?” Slake’s hand stilled again for a heartbeat before resuming the slow, light strokes. “Or are you guys all alike? Is there such a thing as a half-breed?”

  Raze closed his eyes and reveled in being touched. In being alive.

  Unlike Lexi.

  “No,” he said softly. “As long as the mother is a demon, all Seminus demons are purebred. And male.” Well, there was an exception to the “males only” rule, but only one. And that one, Sin, was sister to the Seminus brothers who’d founded Underworld General. “We take on some minor traits of our mothers, but for the most part, all Sems are representative of our species. If we survive to our hundredth birthday, we become fertile. If we haven’t taken a mate by then, we all turn into monsters who can shapeshift to resemble almost any similarly sized species. Then we run around tricking and impregnating every female we see. And like I said, unless the mother is human, the infants are always purebred Sems. It’s part of why we’re so rare. The females give birth and realize they were tricked and that the baby isn’t their species, and they usually abandon or kill the infant.”

  “Ouch,” Slake murmured, his lips brushing Raze’s shoulder. “But for being so rare, your hospital is crawling with you guys.”

  “That’s because Eidolon actively searches us out, and he’s made UG a safe haven for Sems. Our innate healing abilities make us natural medics and doctors. Trust me, most demons can live five hundred years and never run into one of us.”

  “So you guys are purebred, but you said the mother’s species plays some sort of role in who you are? Like what?”

  He inhaled the musky scent of sex and sweat, letting himself enjoy the moment as he shared his species’s particulars with Slake. He wasn’t used to people being curious about him, and he liked it. “There’s a paramedic at Underworld General, Shade . . . his mother was an Umber demon, so he can turn into shadow in the presence of shadow. Wraith’s mother was a vampire, so he needs to drink blood. That kind of thing.”

  Slake’s fingers trailed along Raze’s hip, and he had to bite back a moan of pleasure that wasn’t even sexual. It was . . . appreciative. “Vamps can’t breed.”

  “Long story.” Long and weird and Raze didn’t want to talk about Wraith right now. He didn’t want any males in this bed besides the one he already had spooning him.

  “So how is it that you don’t know what species your mother was?”

  He smiled, remembering his strange, but loving childhood. “I was raised by humans.”

  “Humans?” Slake sounded like he’d bitten into a lemon. “How did that happen?”

  Raze shrugged. “My birth mother abandoned me in a sewer. Left me to be eaten by whoever came along. A couple of Aegis demon hunters found me.”

  “The Aegis found you?” Slake’s voice now sounded a little strangled. “And they didn’t kill you? That’s what those bastards do.”

  The Aegis, an ancient league of human demon slayers, had been the enemy of every underworld being for centuries. But, like all organizations, it had gone through changes over the years, which included reform and even a recent upheaval when members who were sympathetic to non-evil demons rebelled against the old ways. Eidolon had even mated one of their members. So had Gem.

  Unfortunately, the recent near-apocalypse had revealed the existence of demons, and The Aegis’s numbers were swelling as humans flocked to the righteous cause of destroying what they didn’t understand. Not that there weren’t a lot of evil demons out there. But there were decent demons too, and a wide range of demons who walked a neutral line.

  “At the time The Aegis rescued me, they didn’t know I was a demon,” Raze said.

  “The fact that a newborn had tats on his arm wasn’t a clue?”

  “I think they knew something was up, but lucky for me, they weren’t the typical kill-first-and-ask-questions-later kind of Aegis scumbags. When they couldn’t figure out what I was, one of them decided to keep me. She married a doctor when I was three, left The Aegis, and they raised me as their own.”

  Raze smiled at the memory. Carrie Ann and Ryan Bertrand had given him a good life—a normal life in a human household, which had gone a long way toward giving Raze a more human outlook on the world than many of his demon brethren.

  Slake used a fingertip to trace the swirly skull glyph on Raze’s wrist, and he shivered at the sensation of having such a sensitive area touched. Caressed. “How did they explain the artwork?”

  “My mom made up a story about adopting me from out of an abusive situation. Hell, until I reacted badly to a vaccine and my dad ran some blood tests, even he believed that I’d been born to addicts who got me tattooed as an infant.”

  “Did you believe it?”

  He captured Slake’s fingers with his, letting himself play with them as he spoke. The intimacy in such a small thing was stunning, warming him even more than Slake’s body plastered against his back.

  “I didn’t have any reason not to,” he said. “Plus, it was kind of cool. All the other kids thought I was a total badass.”

  Slake shifted, losing the connection between them, and Raze experienced the strangest twinge of disappointment.

  “When did the ball drop?” The mattress bounced as Slake rolled out of it. “Because you know it did.”

  “Oh yeah. It dropped.” Raze salivated at the sight of Slake’s muscular ass flexing as he disappeared into the bathroom. “Seminus demons don’t have any special powers or abilities until they go through the first of two maturation cycles. So everything was cool until I turned twenty and the first one hit.”

  Fuck, that had been crazy. He’d graduated from high school at sixteen, so he’d been in his fourth year of college, preparing for a career in medicine like his father, when he’d gotten sick. Real sick.

  “My vision started blurring, and I was getting these splitting headaches. They got so bad that I couldn’t go to any of my college classes, so I went home. My dad ran a free clinic in Los Angeles, so I helped out until the sickness became so debilitating that I couldn’t even walk. My mom used her Aegis background to research my symptoms, and she figured out that I was a sex demon of some sort.”

  Slake spoke over the rush of water in the sink. “She knew you needed sex.”

  He snorted. “Talk about awkward, huh?” He tucked his arm behind his head and gazed up at the ceiling, not giving a shit that he was naked and sprawled out on the bed. “She was cool, though. She and some of her former Aegis buddies crashed a demon brothel and got a female for me. That female was Fayle.”

  “And she’s been with you ever since?”

  “Yup.”

  The water shut off. “What happens if you go too long?”

  “Fever. Agony. Death.”

  “Well, that’s not cool,” Slake called out. “So where are your parents now?”

  A heavy ache centered in Raze’s chest, and it took a moment before h
e could choke out one simple, yet devastating word. “Dead.”

  Slake appeared in the doorway, his magnificent body still glistening with sweat. “I’m sorry,” he said. “What happened?”

  Raze studied the ceiling again. It was pretty unremarkable as far as ceilings went. “The apocalypse shit that went down a couple of years ago.”

  “Aw, fuck.” Slake stepped out of the bathroom, and Raze figured he was heading for his clothes, so he was surprised as hell when Slake stretched out next to him on the bed again. They weren’t touching, but this was still the most private, most intimate moment he’d ever shared with anyone, including Fayle.

  The knowledge left him off-balance, would probably have freaked him out if they hadn’t been chin-deep in conversation about the worst period in Raze’s life. He wasn’t used to sharing, not because he was an overly private person, but because, besides Lexi, he’d really not had anyone to talk to. His life was work and sex. Sex and work.

  Keeping busy kept him from wishing for things he couldn’t have. Like a male partner.

  Like Slake.

  “They were killed during the upheaval. I tried to save them . . .” Raze trailed off, the memory of finding their remains, scattered all over their house, still too fresh to open that wound. He looked over at Slake, who was lying on his side, propped up by one elbow. “What about you? Where’s your family?”

  Slake’s dark eyes iced over. “As far as I know, they’re alive and kicking in their special little isolated compound in Sheoul.”

  “I’m guessing there’s a long story and some bad blood there?”

  “You could say that.”

  Yawning, Raze closed his eyes, content to bask in the afterglow of the sex and the surprisingly . . . pleasant conversation. “What do you do for a living, anyway?”

  “I work for a law firm.”

  Raze cracked his lids just enough to eyeball his bedmate. “You’re a lawyer?”

  Slake barked out a laugh. “Hell no. My species, Duosos, are weapons specialists. We make and control weapons no one else can, like my handy little sinispheres. I work for Dire & Dyre, using my skills however they need me to. Mainly because, like an idiot, I signed a contract decades ago that ties me to them until the end of next week.”

  “What happens at the end of next week?”

  “I’m a free agent.” There was a note of hesitation in his voice, but Raze didn’t want to pry. Not into that, anyway. He was too curious about something else.

  “So . . . when you say you’re a free agent . . .” He trailed off, gave himself a heartbeat to get his head in the right place, the way he always did before making the first cut of a delicate operation. “Does that apply to relationships?”

  Slake sucked in a harsh breath, and Raze immediately regretted the question. He wasn’t sure why he’d even asked. It wasn’t as if he was available, not when Fayle made being with anyone difficult.

  “I’m not with anyone,” Slake said slowly, “if that’s what you mean.” He turned his head to stare at Raze. “What about you? I mean, I know you’ve got this thing with Fayle, but have you ever tried being with a male without her?”

  Raze sighed. “Right after I went through the maturation phase I told you about, I tried to come with a guy. It didn’t work.”

  He’d hoped, had prayed to a hundred different deities he didn’t even believe in, but right when his climax had been imminent, so hot it burned, pleasure had abruptly shifted to bone-searing agony. Fayle had been there to help, and she’d never let him forget it.

  “But if you found the right guy, could you, I don’t know, do a threesome kind of thing? Have you ever tried?”

  Raze nearly laughed. Once, he’d been hopeful that somehow he and Fayle could work something out. That somewhere out there was a guy who could accept his arrangement with Fayle, and that she could accept Raze’s desire for someone else.

  He’d been such a fool.

  “We’ve done the threesome thing a handful of times, but it was all casual. I’ve never found a male worth trying to break through her jealousy for a real relationship.” He glanced at Slake, wondering if maybe, just maybe, he could be the first. Yeah, it was way too soon to start thinking about the future, but damn it, he’d never experienced this kind of intimacy with anyone, and while it wasn’t like him to share all of this shit, it felt . . . right.

  Slake scowled. “How can she be jealous if she doesn’t want you for more than sex?”

  “She says her species focuses on ownership.” He was surprised by the bitterness in his voice, but then, he was getting tired of playing her games. “They’re possessive of everything they consider theirs. They won’t even give a friend a meal if they’re starving. Sharing some things is punishable by death.”

  “Why the hell do you put up with it? Why don’t you tell her to take a hike?”

  “I’ve tried to leave her,” Raze admitted. “I made it a month before I nearly died.” His body tightened as if it too remembered being in extraordinary pain and misery. “Most of my kind are natural charmers. They love females and can talk one out of their panties in about ten seconds. But I’m not like that. I spent every waking second trying to figure out how I was going to get sex when I needed it, and I hated fucking strange females. I hated myself, and the stress was killing me. I’d go too long between releases, and then I’d get violent and sick . . . until I took it too far one night and collapsed in a filthy alley behind a hound-hump.” He shuddered at the memory of waking up outside the werewolf brothel, his body burning with fever, his eyes bleeding, and Fayle sucking his cock. Somehow, she’d found him and saved his life once again. “My life with Fayle isn’t ideal, but it’s better than the alternative.”

  “I guess I can see that.” Slake’s expression was troubled. “But she’s keeping you from being happy.”

  “Happy?” Raze snorted. “I gave up wishing for that a long time ago. I take what I can get.”

  Something flickered in Slake’s dark eyes. Sadness, maybe? “That doesn’t sound like any way to live.”

  Raze looked up at the ceiling again. “I’ve accepted my lot in life.”

  Very slowly, Slake reached over and brushed his knuckle over Raze’s personal glyph on his neck. A burst of electric pleasure exploded from the thin raised lines of the mark Raze had never been able to identify.

  “Is that why your personal symbol is an ancient Lydian symbol for acceptance?”

  Raze jerked his gaze back to Slake. “How do you know that?”

  “My people make weapons for species of demons you probably have never heard of. One or two speak ancient Lydian, and they always demand that certain symbols be carved into the weapons they commission.” Slake pulled his hand away, but the symbol kept pulsing pleasantly. “So? Are you an accepting person?”

  Raze almost said yes. But would it be the truth? He’d accepted the fact that he would never be a normal Sem. He’d never be attracted to females, and he could never be with a male the way he wanted.

  But that didn’t mean he liked it. And the more time he spent with Slake, the less accepting of his situation he was becoming.

  Slake and Raze lay in silence for a long time, long enough that Slake finally realized he wasn’t going to get an answer to his question. He wanted to ask more about Raze’s relationship with the succubus, partly to gain any information that would help him complete his assignment for Dire & Dyre. But it surprised him to realize that most of his curiosity had more to do with wanting to know how Raze would be affected by losing Fayle.

  It sounded like Raze truly needed her. For his life. For his sanity.

  Fuck.

  Slake shouldn’t care. He shouldn’t. After being rejected for who he was by his family and the one male he’d loved, a male he’d had been weak enough to let back into his life three fucking times, he should have been immune to tender feelings.

  But here he was, impressed by Raze’s medical skills and in awe of his ability to care for complete strangers, let alone a succubus who
was too jealous to let him be happy.

  Slake definitely needed to shift the subject to something less . . . Fayle.

  “Raze?”

  Raze’s response was a sleepy grunt.

  “I’m guessing I was onto something at the hospital when I asked if your buddies know the truth about you?”

  Swallowing, Raze kept looking at the ceiling, clearly reluctant to go there.

  “You don’t have to answer,” Slake said, but Raze shook his head.

  “Nah, it’s okay. It’s just weird to talk about it.” He crossed his legs at the ankles, and the sheet lying over his hips shifted, revealing a glorious hint of that firm length Slake had loved with his mouth. “They don’t know. I don’t think they’d be assholes about it, but I couldn’t deal with the pity, you know?”

  Slake reached out and traced a swirly glyph on Raze’s arm as it rested across his washboard abs, loving how the dark lines seemed to vibrate at his touch. “Pity that you’re gay, or pity that you can’t be with males the way you want to be?”

  “The latter. Probably.” He jerked his arm out from under Slake’s touch and jammed his hand through his hair. Slake experienced an odd twinge of hurt at the abrupt withdrawal, and it pissed him off. He wasn’t ready to let anyone get into his heart enough to hurt him. “Fuck. I don’t know.” He gave Slake a sidelong glance. “What about you? I’ve never even heard of your species. Are you considered . . . normal?”

  Slake barked out a bitter laugh and settled against the pillows. “Not by a long shot.” He clenched his fists as if he could fight back against the bastards in his community—in his own family—who had not only rejected him, but who had called for his execution. “They accepted me until I turned into something they couldn’t understand: a male who was attracted to other males.”

  The worst part about it was that he’d actually tried to change. And as long as he faked finding females desirable, his family was okay with it. Because yep, lying about who you were was okay, but being honest . . . well, that’d get you dead.