Page 27 of The Wickedness of Man

I closed my eyes. I’d slept with a demon. I’d come inside of her. More than once.

And there was still not enough sense in my head to keep me from wanting to take her again.

Fuck.

Beside me, Magda slept peacefully—deeply, I noted, her breathing calm and steady. She lay half on her side, a bare breast peeking just above the sheet. I felt myself growing hard again and had to force my gaze away. I needed to find that doctor. She told me she’d find us later, but that was probably another of her games. I’d never known a demon to be truthful unless it was part of their own peculiar ethos. They weren’t beholden to truth any more than humans were. Everything she’d said could have been a lie, but then… why? Why go through all that trouble to get me to take this girl out of the building before she could get on the organization’s radar?

I replayed the events of the evening. Once we’d gotten into the model condo, I’d searched Magda’s wallet for a driver’s license and only found an ID card that nearly had me flinch when I saw her name: Magdalene Church.Yeowch.I would have bet my right testicle she was a pastor’s kid. Unfortunately, her apartment was clear on the other side of town—a thirty-minute drive at minimum, traffic allowing—which meant I’d need to sit tight and figure out another plan.

I’d tried to wake her a dozen times, but she’d slept through everything. I’d even tried texting someone listed asBestiein her phone, but the cell towers in the area were down, and one look outside at the black vans crawling all over the block left little confusion as to why. I’d watched the clock on the wall above thekitchen sink ticking away, practically feeling Jax’s rage growing with every passing minute.

I can’t let them find us here. The doctor’s right. They’ll either kill or imprison her.

“Hey, Magda,” I said gently, reaching over and stroking the back of my fingers down the side of her cheek. “Can you wake up for a second? I’ve gotta talk to you.”

Magda made a littlehmmingnoise and rolled onto her back, exposing both breasts to me, but she continued to sleep deeply. I tried to tap her shoulder; shake her forearm. I called her name loudly, three or four times, but the woman slept like the dead. The same thing happened when I’d taken her from the doctor’s office, so I knew there was no point in continuing to try waking her. I covered her up with the sheet, more to stop from getting distracted than anything else, then forced myself out of bed.

I strode over to the window and peered out into the rain-soaked streets. Within moments, the patrol of black utility vans that had been scouring the streets for almost twelve hours now made their predictive patterns. The first that pulled up to the light across the street from the condos always took a left turn. The one behind it, a right. The moved in sync, following their routes.

If they ever found out about Magda—there was no mistaking what she was now that I’d taken the time to put the pieces together—she’d be arrested. She’d walked into that building a human woman; I’d not been able to sense any demonic energy from her when I’d seen her outside, but the pull of her power of me… She was most definitely a demon now.

The moment I woke up in the chair and saw her, I’d felt the call of her succubus powers grasping hold of my senses; by the time she’d ordered me to take her to the bed, I was already under her spell without a care in the world. She might even have been stronger than the doctor; I’d at least been able to muster thesemblance of resistance with the other succubus. With Magda, there had been no question in my mind: I had to have her. I had to be inside of her. I had to make her my woman, or I would never know peace again a day in my life.

They’d have a hell of a lot of questions for her in the organization, and none of them would end with,Thanks, that’ll be all! The exit’s right this way.

I sighed and rested my forearm on the window frame. The vans were gone now, but they’d be back. They couldn’t—under any circumstances—see me near this building or have the faintest clue that there was anyone else with me. Especially not a demon.

I turned back to Magda. Her dark hair spilled out like silk against the cream-colored sheets; her ample chest rose and fell with each deep, steady breath. Her full lips begged to be kissed. I couldn’t imagine what had made me long for her so badly, but I forced my gaze back outside. I could almost hear Jax’s admonishment now:How could you be so stupid, Caleb! Haven’t I taught you one blasted thing about how your fascination with carnality would lead to your downfall?

How could I have been so stupid, indeed.

Stupid or not, however, I wasn’t about to let the organization get their filthy fucking hands on Magda. I knew before I’d even finished processing the thought that if anyone caused her pain, I’d kill them. Without hesitation. I’d accepted this as truth while I made what little plans I could. If there was any hope of protecting this girl; of making sure she stayed completely off the Church’s radar, I had to leave before it got any later. The best chance for her would be for me to leave and never see or contact her again.

Once I’d returned home, I’d be watched like a hawk for an indiscriminate amount of time. Perhaps days, perhaps months… might even have my off-campus privileges revoked, or only beallowed to go with a chaperone, as if I was a child. That was, of course, after I’d served my time in the cells. I’d have to lie my ass off or admit it to Jax… I’d have to confess to falling prey to a succubus. The question was whether or not it was better to admit things up front than to wait until I babbled it in the cells during a round or two of torture. At least if I told them up front, they’d think I was being honest in the hopes of seeking repentance and wouldn’t realize I was admitting to alessersin in the hopes they wouldn’t find out about all the other ones.

My gut clenched with fear. I knew what they did to the men who fell under a demon’s control; what they did to the demon was probably even worse. No one could suspect her. No one could know. If taking the secret of our meeting and subsequent tryst to my grave would keep them away from her, then I’d consider it a life well lived. I’d been responsible for enough deaths—human and demon alike—and even if she was the only person I ever managed to save, I would make sure shestayedsafe.

I did some quick math. Based on the timing of the vans’ patterns from earlier, I reckoned I had about twenty-five minutes or so before they came back around; probably less, given that it was now close to two in the morning and there’d be fewer cars on the street.

I turned once more to drink in Magda’s beauty. The low-lying haze of magic surrounded her, radiating from her skin. Her power was nowhere near the sheer weight of Dr. Lowe’s aura, but it was stillincrediblystrong. I walked over and laid back on the bed beside her. Had I been one of the more pious hunters, perhaps I would have delivered her straight to the org and received a hero’s welcome. Instead, I’d hidden her from their retrieval teams, andthen, instead of warning her that the reason I hadn’t just left a note and walked away was because we were being chased by demon hunters, I’d fucked her… I’d fucked herwith such abandon and lust that even to think of it now made me simultaneously ashamed and desperate to do it all over again.

I reached over to touch her, but forcibly withdrew my hand before we came in contact.

You got yourself stuck in a demon’s charm. Way to go, dumbass.

I considered the differences in her power with that of Dr. Lowe’s. When the good doctor had turned her power on me, the power had been overwhelming. But Magda… I’d felt the power in her tone, but there had no coercion, as with the other succubus. She’d been so radiant; I was transfixed even before the pulse of that strange connection arose between us.

When I’d woken up earlier to find her on the floor by the side of the bed, my first thought was that we’d been discovered, or she’d been hurt. The moment I’d touched her… I knew I would never want to stop touching her. When her eyes began to glow purple, I knew I’d been tricked by a demon into protecting another demon—I just didn’t understand how or why.

Even knowing what she was, I hadn’t fought back the urge to take her like I should have. Instead, I had sex with her—the most incredible, mind-blowing sex of my life. Not just because I was under her power, but because I’d wanted to make her mine more than anything else I’d ever wanted in my entire life. I’dneededher… so much so that I wasn’t sure which of us was the guiltier party in this mess. She might have used her influence on me, but the only reason it had worked so well was because I’d wanted her so badly.

I stroked Magda’s dark hair back from her face, still unable to stop myself from being near her and touching her, even if it just meant stroking her cheek. I knew the clock was ticking on my escape plan, but it was agony to think about getting out of this room and never seeing her again. I wanted to gaze into those beautiful gray eyes, stroke her heart-shaped face; wantedto taste her on my tongue and bury myself inside of her until the feeling of her tightening against me squeezed all the sense from my head.

Probably not too far off on that already.

I pulled away from her with alarming difficulty as she gave a soft sigh in her sleep and curled deeper into the covers. I had to leave to keep her safe, and I had to go now, because if she woke up and asked me to keep making her come until we both couldn’t see straight or even walk, I would be halfway inside of her before she’d finished the sentence.

Even knowing full well that when the organization found me—and eventually they would—I’d haveliteralhell to pay.

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