Page 36 of The Mating Fire
He stepped onto the balcony outside her room.
Jared assumed his incubus form, and flew up to the castle turret to think. Cold air batted at his face, a hard slap of fresh reality.
His incubus form had leathery wings ending in sharp tips, short but prominent black horns atop his head. His black hair was shoulder-length, flowing like silk. A leather loincloth covered his substantial sex.
Muscled and powerful, he looked menacing to males, enticing to females. Jared flexed his biceps, tightening the metal armbands engraved with ancient spells to enhance his powers.
In this form, he turned into mist, and invaded women’s dreams and thoughts, coaxing them into seduction. If they truly wished it, he would awaken them and morph into his human/Skin body and pleasure them for hours. After several hours of excellent sex and plenty of mind-bending orgasms, they would fall asleep once more, smiles on their faces.
Then Jared would fly away, sated himself, for a little while. Yet the restlessness always plaguing him would return after a while, so he kept seducing women in pursuit of finding… something. Peace? Joy? Fulfillment?
After several decades, he gave up searching.
When the witch Serena had cursed him after a failed seduction, she sentenced him to become a beast no one would find alluring, only terrifying. He could no longer assume his incubus form after midnight. Instead, he became a horrific and terrifying monster.
So much for enticing women.
For the first time, his cursed beastly form wasn’t a concern. Harper was.
The demon seeking her,if he drained her, could become a powerful weapon to destroy humans, even Others.
And you.
The mocking voice inside him, the one that still clung to a glimmer of conscience, reminded him of his own vulnerability. Jared didn’t believe Harper was his soul mate. Hell, he doubted such things existed, at least for him. But it was clear Harper was in need of strong protection until she learned to harness and control her considerable magick.
Let’s not mention you find her incredibly cute, and sexy.
Shut up.
He considered his options. Her powers needed to be truly tested, but here in his castle? Jared dismissed the thought as he flexed his powerful wings.
What if she turned against him? Harper might be powerful, but he held more power and knew how to use it.
As long as he took her someplace where the demon couldn’t find them, and it was long before midnight before he shifted into a monster, it would work out.
The castle was safe. Secure. No one could touch her here. He’d claimed the temple and turned it into a castle, a structure for splendid isolation, with views of the mountains ringing the stone building. He wanted for nothing here.
But at times, it grew unbearably lonely.
Harper as his soulmate, a woman who wouldn’t find his appearance after midnight horrific and shrink back in terror? Unlikely.
But he liked her grit and courage. She deserved a chance at life, a chance to beat the demon wanting to squeeze and drain her like a juice box.
You like more than her courage. You want her and that bothers you.
Jared had to admit, it did bother him. He was a sexually experienced incubus, and seducing women was no longer an art. More of a mindless task, a repetitive one much as chopping cucumbers (he winced at that analogy) for a cook preparing a salad.
Not with Harper. She stirred him in a way no woman had done in hundreds of years. He wanted to get inside her, not only in a sexual way to claim and possess her body as he’d done with countless women he’d seduced, but to see what intrigued her. What drove her, what made her…
Happy?
Jared shook his head, scowling at the idea. Look at him, getting all sentimental. That wasn’t an emotion he liked, or needed.
A crisp wind ruffled his hair. Clean, pure earth smells lingered in the air, pleasing him. He gazed into the distance, his vision sharpening as he studied the men hunched over pickaxes, turning the soil as they worked in the fertile fields.
Stretching out his wings, he surveyed the tiny village below. Seldom did he circle around the humble mudbrick homes or the sturdier cement buildings with their tin roofs, for he did like the people there and didn’t want to scare them.
But he had an urgent need to meet with Xavier to find out details on how Harper’s family died. She deserved answers and he was determined to give them to her.
