Deal With the Devil

  “I’ve got this,” Ella whispered. Her smooth, soft fingers stroked him, pushing him closer and closer to the edge. A veil of red covered his vision.

  He could feel the silky, creamy opening of her sex waiting for him. Paradise, right there. Worth killing for. Worth dying for.

  Worth living for.

  Eric drove into her, and there was no going back. No restraint left, not once that white-hot channel closed around him. Deeper, harder. Faster. He sank into her again and again. He bit her neck, savored her blood on his tongue, and had to take more—all. All she’d give him.

  He yanked her off the table. Her legs wrapped around him and he lifted her up, again and again and again. She braced herself by locking her hands around his shoulders. Her gaze met his—so fucking beautiful.

  He saw himself in her eyes.

  Saw—

  Ella cried out as a climax hit her. He felt the contractions of her release around him and he shattered. He forgot everything else in his blind drive. The room seemed to whirl around them. Was he flying? He didn’t know. Didn’t really care. He was in her, balls-deep, and he was coming, riding out a wave of release that hollowed him out. That took everything—

  In that one instant, he knew he wasn’t a beast. But he wasn’t a man.

  He was both.

  Eric’s wings folded. He collapsed on the floor, dragging Ella down with him as his mind shut down—as all the rage and fear and hate left him.

  There was only peace.

  Only Ella.

  ***

  “Okay, do we go in?” Duncan asked carefully. “It’s too damn quiet in there, and I’m afraid he might have killed her.”

  She could tell he was half-serious. There had been plenty of noise before in there. It had sounded as if the whole room was being destroyed.

  There had even been a few screams.

  And it had been awkward. Very awkward. It was such a good thing she’d shut the blinds on that observation window. Holly cleared her throat. “Let’s just give Ella a little bit longer to, uh, work her charm on him, okay?”

  “You’re saying she isn’t dead.” Duncan’s hands were on her shoulders. Carefully massaging her.

  “She’s not dead,” Holly was definite on that. But—

  Footsteps thundered behind her. She looked over her shoulder and saw Connor rushing toward her.

  “Problem,” he gritted out. “Big damn problem.”

  Duncan swore. “Let me guess…that dick Cedric?” His fangs flashed. “I’ll be happy to handle that bastard after what he did to Holly.”

  But Connor was glancing frantically around the area. “He just sent out another compulsion. Apparently, once he has his victim’s blood, he can always control them. And he—he just ordered Eric to kill Ella.”

  Holly staggered back. Then she ran for the door of the med ward.

  “Where is Ella?” Connor demanded. “Where is she?”

  “She’s with him!” Holly yelled and she fumbled to open that damn door.

  Chapter Fourteen

  They were on the floor. Ella’s heartbeat drummed frantically in her chest. They’d been flying at some point. She was pretty sure of that. But her wings weren’t out, so they’d been moving purely under Eric’s steam.

  His wings were still there, beautiful and big and she roused enough to touch one, inhaling sharply when she felt the soft silk of his wing beneath her fingertips.

  Then her gaze looked past his wing. They’d…wrecked that lab. Tables were overturned. Medical instruments scattered across the floor.

  So things had gotten a little intense.

  She cleared her throat and looked back down at Eric. She was currently straddling him. He was in her. And his gaze—totally focused on me.

  Ella smiled at him. “I don’t know if that helped you, but it seriously helped me.”

  “Ella!”

  The door flew open. Holly stood in the doorway. Her face looked absolutely horrified.

  Right. Because I’m naked and on top of her step-brother. This is the stuff of nightmares.

  Frantic, she tried to rise.

  But Eric’s hands flew up.

  His hands curled around—around her throat.

  Connor and Duncan both burst into the room. As if things couldn’t get any more embarrassing for her.

  “Privacy,” Ella said. “A moment of—” She broke off because Eric’s hands had seemed to tighten on her throat.

  “Let her go,” Connor barked. “Come on, man, do it now.”

  Eric’s jaw had clenched. His eyes shone with emotion. As if he were fighting. Struggling.

  She waited.

  “Uh, Ella, you may need to kick his ass,” Connor said. “Not that we all haven’t thought of doing it a time or twenty…”

  She ignored him. “I love you, Eric.”

  His fingers feathered over her throat.

  “And I trust you.”

  His breath heaved out. He shot up, moving so that they were now facing each other, their bodies brushing.

  “Love…you…” Eric rasped to her.

  “That’s great, fabulous,” Connor snarled. “But Ella, you’re not getting that he’s under a compulsion to—”

  Eric kissed her. Sweetly. Softly. And his fingers were lightly caressing her jaw.

  “You are my peace,” Eric whispered to her.

  And he was hers.

  “Um, he’s not attacking her,” Holly said.

  Ella wrapped her arms around him. Held him tight.

  “He’s under a compulsion,” Connor said again. “Cedric ordered him to kill you, Ella.”

  “He’s not going to kill me.” She’d never thought he would. “He can’t.”

  Eric shuddered against her. “Hell, no. Never.”

  Because she’d reached him. Or maybe…maybe she’d never lost him.

  “Okay, I’m going to need you to both put on clothes so that my eyes stop burning,” Connor said. “Then we have some serious shit to discuss. Because this mess isn’t over. Not by a long shot.”

  “No,” Eric’s voice was coming easier. Sounding far more human as he pushed his beast—beasts?—back. “It’s not. It won’t be over…until I end Cedric.”

  Silence.

  “Don’t plan on doing that just yet,” Connor finally said. “Because there are some things you need to know first.”

  ***

  She’d saved him. Brought him out of the chaos of his beast and his shift and she’d given him hope. Ella stood by Eric’s side, dressed now—both of them were so that Connor’s eyes would stop burning—and her fingers were wrapped around his. He couldn’t stop touching her. Didn’t want to stop. She was his link to sanity, and Eric rather thought that she always would be.

  “So is the compulsion gone?” Holly asked as she paced near him.

  “I don’t feel him,” Eric told her quietly. “And I also don’t feel the urge to destroy everything around me.”

  “Yeah, we’re all glad you aren’t hulking out anymore,” Connor supplied, “but what was with the wings? You took Fey DNA and you didn’t tell us?”

  He shook his head. And he hated to say this. “I don’t know.” He stared into Ella’s eyes because she deserved this from him. She deserved a million things. “I volunteered for every experiment that Uncle Sam offered up to me. I didn’t ask where they had gotten the serums, not back in those days. Vampires had attacked my whole team—I’d seen werewolves decimate families. I wanted to help. I wanted to be strong enough to fight back, and I didn’t think past the moment. I had no idea that the government had Fey or that—”

  “I don’t think they did,” Holly said.

  All eyes turned to her.

  Some of her hair had come loose from her braid, and she tucked a lock behind her ear. “I spent some time looking at your test results again, Eric. Remember when I was so afraid her blood would kill you? And I—”

  “Poked and prodded me with your needles? Yeah, I remember.”

  Holly cleared her thr
oat. “I got the results back when you were—um, occupied with Ella. Her blood isn’t killing you. Quite the opposite. It appears to have…been a trigger.”

  He wasn’t following. “A trigger?”

  “You know how only some people can become werewolves? Those who already have altered DNA? When humans are bitten by werewolves, two things happen…they die or they transform.” Her breath sighed out. “Your DNA was different. When she bit you…when you bit her and the blood exchanged…there was a trigger. What had been dormant within you, well, it wasn’t any longer.”

  He shook his head even as he felt Ella’s fingers tense around his. “You’re saying…I was always Fey?”

  “Dormant Fey. Somewhere back in your blood line, I’m guessing you had an ancestor who was Fey and that ancestor produced a child with a human.”

  His mother had died when he’d been so young. He knew nothing about her family, despite his best efforts to dig up the past. And with his connections, his efforts had been pretty damn strong.

  “You didn’t use science to grow those wings. They came out because that’s who you are, Eric.”

  He couldn’t quite wrap his mind around that.

  Ella’s left hand lifted. She tapped his shoulder. When his gaze turned to her, he found her watching him with sympathy on her face. “This isn’t going to be the first time this happens,” she said, her voice soft and comforting. “So. Get ready.”

  He blinked.

  She smiled at him. “I told you so.”

  His jaw dropped.

  “I knew what you were, Eric. Even when you didn’t.” She laughed then and it was such a beautiful, perfect sound. Perfect, just like she was. Not evil. Or dark. Or—

  Ella wrapped her arms around him, and he held her tightly. A grin curved his lips because he wouldn’t fight it any longer. Maybe they weren’t mates. Maybe they were. Didn’t really make a difference. She was his heart and that was all that mattered to—

  Connor cleared his throat. “You need to know what Cedric told me.”

  Connor was raining on his parade. Eric growled, “We’re transferring him to Purgatory. If that prison won’t hold him, death will be the only option.”

  “Uh, no, that is really not an option,” Connor responded instantly.

  Ella eased away from Eric. He pulled her right back. “Why not?”

  Connor slanted a fast glance toward Ella. “Because he said that he did something to her. When he had her in his dungeon. He linked them. According to the bastard we have in containment, if he dies, then so does Ella.”

  ***

  “I’m going in,” Ella said, her voice flat. “Not you.”

  Eric forced his back teeth to unclench. “A guy goes a little crazy once…”

  “This has always been my fight, Eric. Even if it is one that I thought ended long ago.” She squared her shoulders. “I’m talking to Cedric. We’re going to find out the truth.”

  Because maybe the guy was just jerking them around.

  And perhaps he wasn’t.

  “I’ll be watching you on the monitor,” Eric told her. “He so much as twitches in your direction, and I am in there.”

  “I’m pretty good at protecting myself, you know. I have my own claws. My own fangs.”

  He caught her hand in his. Her claws weren’t out right then. Eric brought her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to her palm. “How come you didn’t use that strength against me?”

  “Because I knew I could reach you.”

  He kissed her knuckles. “On the surface, some would say that…maybe I’m like him.” He had to say those words. “I’m the one who wanted to change. I’m the one who—”

  “Tried to keep the world safe? Or decimate every Fey you encountered? Which option did you choose again? Remind me.”

  His lips thinned. “I started Purgatory.”

  “And do you put innocents in there?”

  “Never.” Not on his watch.

  “You aren’t like him. I can see the difference. I hope you can, too.” She pulled her fingers from his and gave a little nod to Connor.

  Connor opened Cedric’s door.

  And Eric watched her walk away.

  ***

  “Ella…” Cedric grinned when he saw her. “Ah, lovely Ella. My Ella.” The gold glinted around his ankles and wrists. “Since you’re here, I take it that Eric Pate is dead? Tell me that you made him suffer. Tell me that you took your time killing him. I want to hear all the details.”

  “I’m sure you do.” She paused in the middle of the cell. The door had closed behind her. “The compulsion, that was interesting. I’m surprised you managed to control him.”

  “I can control all vampires and werewolves.”

  “Now you’re just bragging.”

  He laughed. “I am. It took me a while to master that compulsion bit. I had to take more power…more wings.”

  Damn him.

  “But eventually, I was strong enough. I mean, it stands to reason I can control them, right? I helped to make them all.”

  “And you…connected us.”

  His face hardened. “We were always connected. You knew that. That was why you became my lover.”

  “I became your lover because you were dashing. A warrior. Handsome. Strong. I thought I knew you, but when I saw past your mask, I just wanted to run as far and as fast as I could.”

  He leapt to his feet. The chains stretched but held him in place. “And your Eric?” Cedric spat. “What did you think when you saw past his mask? Did you like what you saw?”

  She remembered the wildness. The savagery. And the way he hadn’t hurt her, even at his absolute worst. “I like the man that he is.”

  “The dead man—”

  “No.” Ella shook her head. “Want to hear something funny? Eric is actually Fey. And that part of him…it was stronger than your compulsion. Stronger than you. He fought it. He never hurt me. And he’s back in control.”

  Cedric’s gaze flew around the cell, then locked on the camera. “Liar!” Cedric screamed. “You aren’t stronger than me! They have you in chains, don’t they? You’re locked up, too! Going to your precious Purgatory, going to—”

  “He isn’t going to Purgatory. But you will be.”

  “No, no…I won’t be caged!”

  “The way you caged me? And so many others?” She nodded. “You will be. It seems fitting.” Then, deliberately, she turned her back on him.

  “When I die, you die.”

  Ella didn’t look back at him. “Why would that be true?”

  “Because I made it so.”

  “I don’t think it’s possible…”

  “It wasn’t possible for a man to become Fey, but I did. I took your blood, I gave you mine. I transformed you. I made you weaker, and I made myself stronger…because we are linked. I die, then you die.”

  His words rang with truth. But she didn’t understand how he’d made it happen. It shouldn’t be possible.

  Maybe he is just lying to me. He couldn’t have linked us that way.

  “Did I ever tell you…” Cedric asked her softly, “about the time I met a djinn? He was part of a traveling crew that came to my land. I didn’t believe what he could do at first, so I made a wish.”

  Her heart drummed faster.

  “My first wish was to find a woman of power. A woman who could make me feel like no other.”

  And you met me. What had he felt for her? A djinn’s twisted wish wouldn’t have made it love. Obsession.

  “My second wish was that our lives would be forever entwined. I wanted this power and this woman to be mine for all of my days. So I wished it. I wished that when my heart took its last beat, she wouldn’t take another breath.”

  “That’s a damn selfish wish,” Ella managed to say through numb lips. Had she met the same djinn that long ago day? She feared that she had. And her wish had been distorted just as Cedric’s had.

  “I am a selfish bastard. Why would I let anyone else take what was mine?”
>
  She looked back at him.

  “Do you believe in the power of a djinn?” Cedric asked her. “I did. And I still do…”

  Finally, she understood. Cedric hadn’t bound them.

  Magic had.

  ***

  “Get Olivia in here,” Eric snapped. “Right the fuck now.”

  Because he had far too much experience with djinns. And if Cedric had made that wish…yes, Ella and Cedric would be linked. The end wouldn’t be pretty. And the end—it couldn’t happen.

  Ella had turned to face Cedric now. The bastard looked so smug. So certain. Would Purgatory hold him? Eric honestly wasn’t sure, and he couldn’t just let the bastard run around loose in the world, killing at will, stalking Ella…

  I can’t let him be a threat to her.

  But he also couldn’t kill him.

  No one could.

  ***

  “The funny thing about a djinn’s wish…” Ella kept her voice totally calm. “Those wishes never work out the way you think. Sure, you can wish for a woman of power but, I’m betting when you made that wish, you never thought that power would consume you. Or that I would. But it happened, right? And you just haven’t been the same since.”

  “You’re mine.”

  She nodded. “That could be the madness of the wish talking. Djinns twist wishes. They give you what you wish for, just not in the way you really wanted.” She paused. “So let’s be clear on the wording of that second wish. When your heart stops, I don’t take another breath…that is what you said, right?”

  He gave a jerky nod.

  Ella stepped toward him, drawn now because she wouldn’t be his prisoner for eternity—and that was what he was trying to make her. “How long do I go without that breath? A minute? An hour?”

  His brow furrowed.

  “A day? A week?

  “Forever!”

  “Did you put that in your wish? Because I bet you didn’t and that means maybe I won’t take another breath for five minutes. Or maybe it will be five years, but then…maybe I come back. Maybe I get another breath. While you’re just growing colder and colder as you face death.”

  “No!”

  ***

  “What’s happening?” Olivia demanded as she rushed toward Eric. “Is Ella all right?”

  He grabbed her wrists and pulled her close. “I need you to make a wish.”