His eyebrow raised. “You’re that irresistible?” he teased softly.
She nodded, which made her dizzy. She swayed a little on her feet, and heat branded her lower back. His hand was there, steadying her… claiming her. A new wave of weakness washed over her, coupled with a growing warmth in her core. He was getting to her in every possible way.
“I don’t mean to be,” she said.
“Of course you don’t,” he said. Then he leaned over her to whisper in her ear, pulling her closer with the hand at her back. “You can’t help what you are,” he told her. “None of us can. So what will you give me in exchange for their lives, my Dark Angel?”
Chapter Forty-Nine
Dahlia went utterly still in his arms. His words moved through her with a grating sense of horror. Had he really just said that?
But when she gently pulled back and looked up into his eyes, she knew he had. And she knew he was serious. The promise was right there in the fire surrounding the blue.
Just for clarification, she asked, “What do you mean?” But her voice was hoarse and it caught a little in her throat, because she knew damn well what he meant.
Playing along, Lazaroth stepped to the side, but kept his hand at her back. He gestured to the club and its writhing, reveling inhabitants. As if he had control over her vision, she easily zeroed in on the men he had been referring to. He was right. Though they attempted to hide it, they snuck covert glances or outright lust-filled gazes at her over the lips of their drinks and behind the backs of their friends.
“What will you give me, Dahlia?” Lazaroth asked casually. Glancing at her with those cold burning eyes before looking back at the men. “What is it worth to you to not have their lungs pulled out through their throats?”
Dahlia felt his words like a punch to the gut. She lost her breath and dread settled deep and hard and heavy inside her. It was a weight in her soul that numbed her fingers and toes and did nothing to help with the dizzy weakness the drink had already infused her with. She felt as if she were falling.
Down the rabbit hole….
“Answer me, angel,” he said, turning toward her. The blue of his eyes was melting into the red, making a ring of purple fire.
Purple fire… like Stale Fire, she thought. Like my fire.
Her mind was spinning through useless realizations, stalling because it didn’t want to face what Steven – what Lazaroth – had just said.
“What are you willing to sacrifice?” He cocked his handsome head to one side. “To keep those men breathing?”
“Anything,” she whispered, closing her eyes.
Thrum, thrum, thrum….
The music pulsed her heart, pushed her blood, filled her soul. She saw the course of her life, being born into a royal family that dictated who she was, being led into a Tuath fae adulthood that dictated what she would do, being kidnapped by a mad Entity who dictated how she would betray. Her entire existence, she’d been a slave to circumstance, and she’d never had the power to make any difference in any of it. Fate still went strolling unhindered through its territory and took what it wanted, sometimes leaving bodies in its wake.
No matter what she did. No matter how hard she tried.
Until now.
Even as the club swayed, entranced in its universe of lights and distorted techno sounds, Dahlia realized – that this time? There was something she could do. Even if it meant doing the one thing she was terrified to do. Even if it meant giving in.
“Anything?” he asked softly. His lips were beside her ear, and she felt his voice as well as heard it. He’d moved in so close, towering over her like her shadow.
Anything, her mind echoed. “Anything you want.”
If that was what she had to do to slam the door in fate’s face, so be it. If that would keep him from becoming the thing the Demon’s Curse so badly wanted him to become, the thing he was already well on his way to becoming.
“That’s all I needed to hear.”
Dahlia inhaled sharply when the hand at her back moved and his arm encircled her waist tightly. He pulled her to him, and the world moved. It seemed to shift, then blinked out of existence. A split second later, she was reaching out to steady herself, her hand against the king’s hard chest when the world reappeared, and they were standing in a parking lot.
“Get on the car.”
Dahlia blinked, swayed a little, and took a step back. Lazaroth was standing beside a large black muscle car with a mile of shining, black hood. The windows were darkly tinted, but she could see through the windshield that the interior was black leather. She frowned and looked up at him. Had he told her to get on the car?
He released her and walked from the side toward the front of the vehicle. His shoes echoed on the pavement. They were alone in the lot; though every space was taken, it seemed deserted of all life. The music from the club could be heard from outside, but it was muted and distant. Beyond the edges of the lot and the façade of the building housing the club, darkness stretched as if it were the end of the world. Dahlia had the strangest sensation, as if Lazaroth had taken the club, its inhabitants, and the whole of the lot outside it and sliced it out of reality to place it in another dimension.
The king stopped at the front of the car and turned to face her. “A deal is a deal, Dahlia. You want those men to live – and I want you right here,” he said, leaning over to splay his hand across the shining black paint. “On your back.”
Dahlia’s heartbeat kicked up ten notches. She looked from the car to him, and found a gaze that brooked no mercy, no lenience. He waited patiently as she processed the command – and her knees felt weaker, and moisture formed between her legs.
Gods help me, she thought. He was turning her on.
This had never happened before. Not once in her long, long life had she felt anything remotely like real, sexual desire for a man. She’d been a Tuath cursed with the body to bring vast amounts of pleasure, and a mind that wanted to turn away from it all.
But now a man stood before her who was more dangerous than any she’d ever known, a king wielding powers darker and more potent than any she could have dreamed, and yet everything about him made her want him. Even this right here. The command he gave her, the way he patiently, but impatiently, waited. The burning fires in his eyes.
She wanted it. All of it.
Suddenly, Dahlia realized her salvation. She realized his. There in that give and take, that command and surrender, was a way for her to reach the man she was falling in love with. Because that was where trust came in.
And she trusted him.
Gods help her and her very soul, she trusted him. And when she steeled her nerves, climbed onto the hood of the car, then laid herself out on it like a sacrificial lamb, she proved it.
Chapter Fifty
Lazaroth could scarcely believe what was happening. He’d counted on Dahlia Kellen fighting him. He’d primed himself for a battle of wills. He’d prepared himself to do whatever it took – whatever it took – to force her to yield to him. But he stood in stunned silence, his heart literally aching in his chest, his cock hardening into a pain-filled vessel of maddened desire, and watched as the woman he would kill and die for crawled obediently atop the Demon King’s car.
The car came with the position. As did so many things, so many things he wanted to share with her, give to her, shower her in. He wanted to give her the world, and now hope filled the empty spaces around his hard, cold desire and made him think – maybe, just maybe, he might get the chance to do so.
Dahlia was the essence of entrancing. She moved like a cat, all grace and supreme confidence. She stepped out of her blood red sky-high heels, revealing toes painted a deep, deep red that was nearly black, the same shade as a Black Dahlia. Then she leaned over and with strength and grace mortals could only dream of, she pulled herself onto the black muscle car and began crawling across its shining hood. Every inch she gained across that black expanse, every single move she made, was like watching magic bein
g born. He was mesmerized. He was lost.
Something sliced through the dark and the red of his being. There was nothing but need, nothing but the suffering of longing and of loneliness. There was an anger that laced every breath he took, a fire that burned at the edges of his vision, his world. This was the essence of existence in the wake of the Curse.
But in Dahlia’s practiced yet somehow innocent of movements, something managed to break through his cursed world.
He had been standing in a dark room. No windows, no doors. And just like magic, she pierced the walls, tearing through them like tissue paper, and she broke through that darkness. For half a second, he remembered. He felt.
And then the darkness was back. And with it, the red. And the hard, unrelenting need.
Dahlia reached the center of his hood and rested back on her elbows, breathing deep and fast. He could almost hear her heart beating; he could if he tried. But he was too busy seeing. The long, lean lines of her, crisscrossed in red velvet, were like a pulp fiction novel brought to life. She tossed her jet black mane, and it shimmered in thick locks across the hood of his car. Then she arched her back and bent her knees, revealing the slightest hint of what lay between them.
She was the most stunningly beautiful angel to ever fall from the heavens… and land in his hell.
He caught her gaze and held it as he unbuttoned his suit coat and shrugged it off his broad shoulders. He could see the pulse pound in the side of her neck, and noticed it quickening further. He moved to the side of the car and draped the jacket over the driver’s side rear view mirror, never hurrying, and never taking his eyes from hers. He held her fast like that, as if he had strapped her down with steel chains.
She made a soft sound, one of fear perhaps or one of helplessness. He knew she was overwhelmed – spread out like a present for him on the hood of his car. He knew he was scaring her. And yet she did as he asked, just to save some humans she didn’t even know. She was very brave.
Of course, he was going to kill them anyway. He would just wait until they made a second mistake. He could even force them to make that mistake. Then he would have the excuse he needed to end them.
She’s mine, he thought as he turned to move back toward the front of the car. He reached out his hand, brushing his fingertips ever so gently along the smooth expanse of her lengthy leg as he walked. She jumped a little at the touch. And then she tore her gaze from his and turned her head to the side. He saw her shut her eyes tight, no doubt willing herself to not move, to not get up and flee.
She could have run. She could have even attacked him if she’d wanted. He almost chuckled at the thought. She was that much of a spitfire.
But instead, she remained where she was and obediently allowed him to touch her. It made him hate the men she hoped to save even more. He decided when he killed them, he would do it slowly.
Laz watched her closely as he wrapped his hands around her ankles and inexorably pulled her legs further apart, revealing the tight curve of her bottom and the red satin panties that beckoned so starkly against her pale flesh. She sucked her lip between her teeth and clasped it hard; he expected to see blood well up any second now. The thought made him smile, and when she opened her eyes and turned her head to watch him, he could see by the reflection in her eyes that his fangs were longer and sharper than ever.
“Don’t move your legs,” he told her firmly, capturing that gorgeous green gaze again and holding it hard. He slowly released her legs, and she inhaled sharply, knowing full well just how vulnerable she had become. She was one strip of fabric away from being fully exposed to him. And suddenly, that was all he wanted in the world, more than anything he had ever craved. He wanted her open, uncovered, bared and helpless.
A sound climbed slowly up his throat. It reverberated off the cars around him, shook the ground beneath his feet. It was the demon in him, the monster – fully awakened and hungry as hell. He climbed like a predator onto the car, graceful, easy, and strong, moving over her like a living shadow, dark and dangerous and inescapable.
She watched him come, helpless to stop him. He stopped when he was towering directly over her and held himself up with one hand pressed to the hood near her right shoulder. His other hand, he placed on her right leg above her knee. She jerked again at the contact, but let out a ragged breath. She could not escape his gaze, though he knew she wanted to. His magic surrounded her now, and she was only fortunate he was not using more of it.
His smile turned downright cruel as he ran his hand up the length of her leg from her knee to her upper thigh. From there, they traveled further up, and Dahlia went very, very still. He heard her little breaths, quick and short as his fingers found the edge of those satin panties. He ran his fingertips along their seam.
“You’re wet, angel,” he told her.
She gave a helpless whimper, and he felt her power brush against his, pushing back. He was raising her ire, bringing out the fight in her. He liked that.
“You aren’t going to forget our deal, are you?” he asked casually as his fingers curled beneath the band of her panties where they rested in the curve between her long leg and his ultimate goal. He lowered his body closer, his lips inches from hers when his fingertips found the welcome softness of silky curls that had been dampened with building pleasure.
Oh gods….
His own breath hitched. His cock raged painfully. He so badly wanted to show restraint. He needed to maintain control. But that sweet, slick touch ramrodded through him like an activation switch. All at once, his vision shifted into reds and blacks. His pupils dilated. Dahlia Kellen encompassed all he had ever desired or ever could desire. In that moment, she became his only goal, his ultimate prey.
Predator viciously awakened, body hard with merciless need, Lazaroth proceeded to invade his queen. He grasped the flimsy material of her underwear and gave a single quick yank. The garment came away easily, and he was free of any further barriers.
His hand was once more on her leg, trailing over the same path he’d made before, and Dahlia’s movements became restless beneath him. His fingers moved indelibly further, slipping ruthlessly past the joining curve of her leg, through her silken black curls, and finally to the slick, warm opening he had made so vulnerable.
Suddenly, Dahlia’s quick breaths stopped, and she moaned helplessly. Blood welled on her lip where it was caught between her teeth as he pressed his fingers inside her, slowly slipping into the tight wetness at her core.
Chapter Fifty-One
He held her there, having breached some small part of her, and fought with the monster raging inside him. But she was being overtaken by her nature and the heat of his touch. Her chest rose and fell in quick succession, and her long, lean legs squirmed, unable to remain still. She wanted more and she wanted less.
She would not get less. And the more was going to come excruciatingly slowly – for them both. It was killing him to not simply ravage her right there on his car. But it was killing him in the most delicious way.
“Again, do not move,” he commanded softly but firmly, his tone unforgiving. He slowly rose above her, his fingers still embedded within her, and sat back between her legs. With his free hand, he reached over her and grasped the shoulder strap of her velvet red dress, curling his fingers menacingly around it.
She knew what was coming. He could see the knowledge reflected there in her stunning gemstone eyes. They shined with a lust she did not want to admit, and he couldn’t blame her. He was the monster above her, all threats and dark promises. But he could barely care. He would do anything it took to claim her. In that moment, there was nothing else in the world but Dahlia and the sweet salvation she offered.
With that thought, he ripped the dress from her body in one clean pull and pressed his fingers deeper inside her. She cried out as the dress tore beautifully, shredding into red ribbons of material around her, like a sacrificial blanket so stark and scarlet against her milky skin. Her breathing became frantic, and he saw her fingers pres
s into the hood of the car, searching for purchase as if she would fall into some deep, bottomless abyss.
He smiled his cold smile and thought, Oh, but you are.
“Please,” she barely managed. A single word through the ragged breaths, a beseeching plea. But for what? He laughed. For mercy?
From him?
“What is it, angel? Afraid you’ll be seen? Out here in the night, exposed and helpless?”
She said nothing as he slowly pulled his fingers out of her – and pressed them back in. But he could read the reflections in her eyes. Even as she began to move her hips to meet his hand, even as she was helpless to want the pleasure he offered, she was afraid of that. She was afraid of being seen.
Not that it would happen. He finally broke eye contact with her and allowed his gaze to travel over her body, taking in every smooth curve, every deep valley, and every deliciously perfect inch of her form. Her breasts were round and firm, her waist narrow, her hips tantalizingly curved. Her skin was taut and beaded with tiny droplets of perspiration. Those droplets dampened the ends of long strands of black hair that clung to her neck and the tops of her breasts, and tipped the ends of her long, thick, dark lashes.
She was the very image of sexual desire. She was perfection.
He would die a thousand deaths before he allowed another man to see what he was seeing. She was his alone. This was his alone. No one was going to come out of that club. He had so much control over the humans in the building, it was like playing doll house with a child. They danced and drank and talked inside as he touched his queen intimately in the parking lot and listened to the sweet sounds of her helplessness.
But she didn’t need to know she was safe from their gazes. There was something about her fear that fed his desire like gasoline on a building blaze.
He brushed the fingers of his free hand along her hip bone. She moved a little, shocked at the heat of his touch, but then no doubt recalled his words. Don’t move. And he meant them.