Demon from the Dark (Immortals After Dark #10)(28)

She dropped back down with a whoosh. What the hell? The bastard had greased the rope. That demonic, vampiric bastard. If she couldn’t get hold of the rope above her, then there was no escape. Which he obviously knew.

She hung limply, swaying from her momentum, cursing Malkom Slaine’s very birth, until she felt her ring slipping down her finger. “No!”

But it was gone, helped along by the grease on her hands. “Damn him!” She heard a ping. Following the sound down, she swiped her hair from her eyes with her greasy hands—

Her ring had just beaned a second monster X in the head. Another one of those things was directly below her, gazing up with its mouth wide, its body crouching to spring.





10




Antennae slashed all around Malkom; he dodged them to attack the beast’s body.

Now his succubus female could behold his skill. As with the head he’d gifted her, this contest was proof that Malkom could protect his woman and their offspring.

He landed a mighty blow, glancing back. Had she seen it? Was she looking—

She was gone? Foolish female! Running from him when the Gotoh hunted in pairs? He had to dispatch this one swiftly.

And then I am going to heat her backside for this!

The beast sprang closer, the tip of an antenna slicing past his face.

“Demon!” she screamed from a distance. A second Gotoh’s roar sounded. Which meant it was about to feed on its captured prey.

Though Malkom hadn’t killed the first one, he sprinted toward the sound, knowing the beast would follow him, knowing he’d have to fight two.

Gods, to be able to trace. Even with his speed, he might not reach her in time. Pumping his arms . . . faster, faster.

His newly beating heart raced as it hadn’t in centuries. Dizziness washed over him, and his vision wavered.

What was this frenzy? The feeling that had weighed on him now escalated. When he recognized it, his eyes narrowed.

This was fear. For her. It’d been so long since he’d felt it that he hadn’t comprehended it.

The only people who knew fear were ones who had something to lose.

At last, he did. And he’d be damned if anything took her from him.

His fangs sharpened even more, that mindless furor from the night before arising again.



Swinging to avoid the creature’s leaps, Carrow repeatedly flung her body upward to try to secure that lead rope. “Demon!” she screamed again. When the thing’s claws brushed her hair, she added, “Get your ass over here!”

Slaine burst into the clearing. He scowled, yelling at her in Demonish as he launched himself at the beast.

“Behind you!” she cried when the original one appeared directly after.

He was going to have to defeat both of them—while keeping them away from her.

As he clashed with them below, she hung like a pendulum, helplessly swinging. The second creature kept jumping for her, and the demon kept batting it away while still contending with the first.

With one flick of its antenna, it slit through the demon’s chainmail, slashing his chest. He bellowed in fury as blood gushed. But he caught the antenna the next time, using it to force the creature’s head down. Hauling it back like a leash, he moved in for the kill, claws bared. A grisly spray of blood erupted. The thing was no more.

One down. But while Slaine had been occupied, the other had begun crawling spiderlike up the tree for her. “Demon! Eyes up!”

At once, he leapt for the beast, tackling it away from her. He wrestled it to the ground, evading those sharp antennae as he punched holes in its body. The thing snapped that mouthful of fangs, but the demon was too quick, too powerful . . . .

With a wrenching crack, he twisted off the second one’s head. Two down. He hauled the twitching bodies away.

Now that the fighting was done, no longer was he roaring or berating her; he’d grown eerily silent as he crossed to the bone tree behind her. She nervously twisted around, pulling her skirt over her ass while keeping him in sight.

He untied the lead rope, feeding out a length to lower her. As he approached her with the line in his fist, she saw he was battle-maddened once more—and getting aroused. The raised outline of his shaft bulged in his pants.

He eased her to a sitting position on the ground, just enough that the pressure was relieved from her ankle. As he stalked closer, she heard his heartbeats accelerating, his breaths growing more hectic than they’d been in the fray. His fangs were elongating.

He was about to bite her. Again.

“No, demon!” She scuttled back, but he merely stepped on the rope. “Bastard!” When her palm landed on a stone, she chucked it at him, popping him in the horn. “Snap out of this!”

One’s memories could be taken through the blood. The more he drank from her, the more likely he’d be to see hers. He might discover her plan to betray him. Then he’ll behead me, put my head on a pike. “Don’t bite me,” she warned.

His eyes now a hungry black and locked on her pulse point, he dropped to his knees before her.

“Don’t, vampire!”

He growled at that.

“What? You don’t like being called a vampire? Then don’t act like one!”

Though she fought him, he looped his arm around her back, pinning her arms to her sides as he covered her body with his own. His erection was like a steel rod as he rocked it against her.