Page 17 of Claimed
A warm trickle draws my focus downward. I stare at fresh blood as it dribbles over my knuckles to the portal beneath my feet. The red is nearly the same shade as my magick.
Clenching my hand, I navigate the portal back across town. An empty stretch of beach draws my eye and I let my magick dissolve inches above the sand.
The night air coming from the ocean is cooler and it eases the fire still inside me. Toeing off my boots and stuffing my socks inside, I roll up my pant legs and move closer to the water. Cool foam splashes my bare feet.
It’s quiet save for the steady splash of the waves, the roar of the wind.
My eyes close and I cleanse my lungs of the human female’s scent. But her heat is harder to dispel. Her memory nearly impossible.
She had responded like a wanton siren, her soft moan stirring my blood until I thought the hall would glow red from the light filling my eyes.
Her lust seeped into my skin, sating my hunger, and I never even touched her smooth tan skin.
How would she react if I had gripped her curvaceous hip and wrenched her against me?
That more than anything was what made me run.
I wanted to be rough with her. To feel her pulse beat under my fingertips as I caressed her throat. To grab handfuls of her lush dark hair and take her from behind until she screamed my name loud enough for the human bartender to hear.
Jealousy is an ugly mistress.
“But I’m Asmodean,” I say into the night, my voice an incredulous whisper. “I don’t get jealous.”
And yet, I had.
I had seen the way she looked at the human male, the way her body had warmed and her scent had spiked.
It was why I grabbed her. Her easy dismissal of my proposition had filled me with a dark need. Worse still was that my proposition seemed to amuse her, like she heard better on a daily basis. But there is no one better than an Asmodean.
And I was willing to bed them both just to prove who was more skilled. To prove who could satisfy her more.
Stumbling back from the waves, I land on my ass in the sand as horror rips through me.
It’s so like the desire for Lilah that the shaking returns.
My hands dig into the sand, caking my bloodied knuckles as the water laps at my body. But no one can make me feel like Lilah does.
No one.
Least of all some stranger. A human female I may never see again.
No. It isn’t the human woman. It’s my desire for Lilah trying to find an outlet elsewhere. Perhaps being away from her is amplifying the need. Making me less immune.
And yet, as I sit and watch the waves, I don’t know who I’m trying to convince.
Because I stopped believing my own lies a long time ago.
By nightfall the next night, Horan and I are dressed to the nines and seated in the back of a hired car. He remains silent next to me, a scowl fixed on his features.
After hours at the beach, I made my way back to the hotel, un-spelled my door and found an empty suite. Horan’s door was closed, the party goers were gone, and the sun was just beginning to crest the horizon outside.
For appearance’ sake, I had pretended to usher a maiden from my room before returning to bed.
Sleep had not come for a long while. When it did, it seemed like I had just closed my eyes before the angel was knocking on my door.
I adjust my lapels and settle back deeper in the leather seat. “You will see some things that may bother your delicate sensibilities. Please try to refrain from causing a scene.”
He turns amber eyes to me. There is a jaded, hollow cast to the otherwise bright hue. “I’ve seen things that would scare even you, demon.”
