Supernatural. Part 29

That was when a cloud of smoke suddenly swirled into her view, several feet before her. It rushed around like a tornado, but it was no bigger than a man. Black and grey and silver streams curled around one another, and then suddenly resolved into the shape of a man made of smoke, and then a man made solid. Corrine's eyes had seen many special effects on movie screens, but nothing like the reality of what she'd just experienced. Even so, she wanted to reach out and touch him, to prove to herself that he was as real as he looked. How was any of this possible? A man appearing out of thin air? Another man who could read thoughts? It was all fantasy, pure and simple. And yet not. Here it was reality.

"Corrine, I'd like you to meet our King, Noah."

Corrine drew in a breath as the sunset sped up around her, drawing down dark violet skies and then a cloak of night around the handsome Demon King. He was larger than Kane by far, in height and in musculature, and everything in his bearing screamed of his great position in life. He was powerful, he was responsible for the well-being of an entire people, and he knew it.

But as darkness descended around them, Corrine quickly learned there was far more to him. Noah showed her his palms briefly, and then with a whoosh of sound they were engulfed in flame. Brilliant b.a.l.l.s of fire swallowed up his hands to the wrists, and slowly he began to move them, creating bright arcs of light in the darkness as he sketched circles and swirls and arches. Then with a sharp snap of his wrists, fire raced up his arms and quickly engulfed all of his body. Everything inside Corrine that had been trained to respond in the human dimension screamed to see a man on fire. She was breathing so hard, the air cold and warmed all at once in her lungs as she stood there forcing her mind to accept the impossible.

And then, in a rush, the flames burst apart, flying around her in a great circle and touching a ring of torches amidst them that she had not noticed before. After he had lit their way, the Demon King disappeared.

She turned to look at Kane, but only had a moment to open her mouth before he put his finger then to his lips and then pointed forward. Her heart seized in her chest as she eagerly looked in the indicated direction. Another cloud was coalescing in front of her, only this time it seemed to have more weight to it than smoke. After a moment she realized it was dust she was seeing.

Kane grabbed her by her shoulders from behind, pulling Corrine into his warm body as he pressed his lips to the sweet spot just behind her ear.

"Corrine Russ, I'd like you to meet my brother. His name is Jacob, and he is the most powerful Earth Demon ever to walk the world."

And as he spoke, the man himself appeared. There was so much of Kane's features in him that she might have known they shared the same blood even if he had not told her so. Jacob's hair and eyes were as dark as Kane's, but it was those proud Romanesque features that linked them, from the long nose and strong chin to the sculpture of the full, knowing lips. Yet there was something in Jacob's eyes that Kane's lacked. The man behind her, for all the pain and hards.h.i.+p he'd experienced as he laid bound beside her, had an almost carefree quality to his aura.

Jacob did not. Here was a man who carried a great weight on his soul. Corrine had seen it before, in the eyes of young boys who were faced with the lures of gangsters every day, and the painful or deadly alternatives if they resisted. In their world there was no such thing as saying "no." Not without dreadful consequences. In Jacob's weighted aura, there was a tremendous responsibility.

Jacob spread his hands wide, his palms turned toward the ground, and suddenly everything around them began to rock and tremble. The earth beneath her feet quaked; then a wall of soil and stone lurched up between her and Jacob. It was so ma.s.sive and raw that she could smell the loam, see the burrowing creatures that suddenly dangled from roots and such as their protective homes were unearthed. Dirt rained down like a soft summer shower, even as the wave rising before her s.h.i.+fted first to the right and then to the left. And in the next moment the entire monstrosity fell in on itself, rumbling and shaking until it had repacked itself into place. By the time Jacob took a deep, cleansing breath and looked up at her, there wasn't so much as a speck of dust out of place to bear witness to what had just happened.

"All right," she breathed. "You're Demons. Not human. I totally get it."

"But it is not all about parlor tricks," Jacob responded. "It is about long-held traditions, a long history of mistakes, and a painful responsibility to ourselves and those we coexist with. We cannot make mistakes. Mistakes cost us too dearly."

"Wow." Under her breath she whispered into Kane's ear. "Is he always so tightly wound?"

"Always," Kane a.s.sured her. "But he's getting better." A woman resolved out of thin air at Jacob's side and Kane's brother immediately reached to wrap an arm around her curvy hips and draw her flush to his body. It only took an instant for Corrine to recognize who she was.

"That's my sister! Isabella!" She lurched forward, suddenly needing to feel the steady and familiar irreverence of her sibling, but Kane held her tight.

"Remember, this is all a production of my powers. I don't know anything about your sister other than what she looks like. She would feel, smell, and act very flat to you, with no dimension. I've only met her once in person. I could draw from your memories of her, but the result would not catch all those special nuances that make her the person you love and are familiar with. Not unless I put all of my energy and focus into it and I am not old enough or strong enough to maintain our surroundings and do that as well."

"So there are limits to what you can do," Corrine murmured.

"Yes, of course. We are not all powerful. And besides, there's a bit of an ethical limit too, Corrine. I won't do things that will end up making you feel like you've been manipulated. Having your sister tell you how wonderful everything is for her, how wonderful we are, would be an outright manipulation of your trust and a misuse of your relations.h.i.+p with her. I am doing all of this to orient you to my world, to show you who and what we are, not to run some kind of propaganda gambit."

"I appreciate that."

"But even what you are seeing isn't really right," he said with no little frustration. "This is just a demonstration of power. It isn't showing you how truly good we are. How incredibly moral Demons like my brother are." He sighed. "I'm just not powerful enough or skilled enough."

Corrine turned around against his body, not taking the opportunity of his loosened grip and lax attention to move away from him.

"On the contrary," she said softly, reaching up to touch the edge of the wild dark curls lining his temple. "You've shown me that and more. If there is one thing I have learned at my job, it's that those with power like to use it against those without. The fact that this is the first time I've even heard of a Demon, in spite of those extraordinary things I just saw them do, proves that you all wield your power with incredible regard for those around you. Your morals are shown in just the way you have restrained yourself from trying to win me over with methods even we humans wouldn't hesitate to use against one another."

He looked at her then with such a combination of fascination and true adoration that she bent her head, hiding her face against his breast bone.

"When I first saw you," he whispered against the top of her head, "I admit it was your outer beauty that fascinated me. All of this glorious, fiery hair and your amazingly pale and perfect complexion. The way your eyes lit when you laughed, the way your curves filled out your clothing. But that was just the lure. As I watched you, as time went by and I saw the way you dealt with those around you . . . that was the hook. Oh, Corrine, that was when I realized you were going to mean more to me than just a pa.s.sing fancy. It was such a deep, visceral reaction. I knew you were meant for me. Even though every logical part of me understood it was forbidden for a Demon to touch a human being with the intentions that I had formed toward you . . . I couldn't let go. I couldn't walk away."

Corrine went still as his words sank into her brain.

"What do you mean, when you first saw me?" she asked, even though she was already feeling the truth rus.h.i.+ng to the front of her mind. Things he had been saying, things that had been happening to her. If his explanation of how a Druid and Demon connection worked was to be understood, then . . . "You've met me before all of this. You . . . you touched me before. If what you are saying makes any sense at all, then you touched me long before I actually got sick." She squirmed in his hold, trying to shrug him off. "Only, I don't remember ever meeting you before. Ever being touched by you before."

"Because when I met you, when I touched you, it was wrong of me to do so. It was illegal according to my people's laws. Jacob stopped me from . . . he made me erase your memory of any contact we had."

"So you all have been messing with my mind? You stalked me, felt me up or something and then messed with my head so I wouldn't remember? And now you're trying to tell me what an up and up and moral society you have?" She pushed him off herself completely, stumbling as she backed away. "And for all I know you've got my sister locked up someplace where I'll never see her. Or . . ." Kane could see the panic welling in her eyes, br.i.m.m.i.n.g in her voice. "G.o.d, how do I know what's real anymore? What can I trust anymore?"

He reached out to her, grabbing her by both of her upper arms and giving her a shake to stop the progression of her racing, panicked mind. It forced her wide green gaze up to his, forced her to look into his eyes and into him.

"Nothing I say or do is going to make up for the underhanded ways I have dealt with you in the past, and for that I am incredibly sorry. I know it was wrong. I beg your forgiveness for it. But the truth is I would do it all again. I don't think I would even have an ounce of free will that could compel me otherwise. Corrine, I am now, and will always be, tied to your side. Destiny laid out a plan for you and me. She predestined that we should walk a powerful path together, that I should, in all things, be devoted to you. If that is shameful in your eyes, if that is something you perceive as nefarious and wrong . . . then I am so sorry. I am . . . heartbroken. I am at a loss as to how to be anything better for you than what I am. And to have failed my one true mate in this life shames me."

There was no denying the weight of the shame she saw in his eyes. It simply took her breath away. Whatever was truth and whatever was made up by the power of his mind, there was nothing as clear to her as his sincerity in that moment. She should have doubted him. She should have remembered all the games men had played with her all these years as they strove to take one thing or another from her. She should have held him just as accountable for his lies as she did the other males who'd lied to her.

But she didn't. For all of that history, for all of that mistrust and those painful lessons in deception, they had never touched the true heart of her. She had never stopped wanting forever after and a soul mate. She continued to crave a real partner in life who would support her when she needed it and who would look to her for support when he needed it.

When she looked at Kane, when she collated all he had been telling her and all she had seen and experienced so far, she saw exactly what she had been looking for. However, it would take a huge leap of faith on her part. There was a very fine line between what she craved and the attentions of a psychotic stalker. How would she tell the difference? How did anyone tell the difference?

"They can't tell the difference, to be honest," Kane said, reminding her how easily he could read her thoughts. "They go purely on faith. They have to trust themselves and what they are feeling. You need to trust yourself. You will make a wise, solid choice based on your intelligence and your instincts."

"I would," she breathed, pulling closer to him so she could gaze up into his clean, honest eyes. "But you have to admit, your power is enough to make anyone doubt the workings of their own mind."

"What can I do to make it better for you? To make it easier? Tell me. Anything. I'll do it."

"A promise. A promise that you'll never manipulate my mind again without asking me first. Even something like this." She looked up and around at the crisp dark sky filled with the stars. They were sharp, bright, and beautiful. Breathtaking.

"What you're asking . . . it will be hard for me. Let me explain," he said hastily when she frowned. "All of my life I've been trained to use the powers of my mind in all ways and in all things. Demons use their powers as reflexively as humans draw breath. I will never mean you any harm and I do not intend to lord my power over you, but my need to use power is unthinking. Just as you would thrust your hands out in front of you to break a fall, if I were in danger . . . if you were in danger, I would not be able to help my reaction."

She had to give him credit for his honesty. He had the power to make a promise and then do as he wished, wiping her memory of any transgressions or trespa.s.ses.

"That I can promise you," he said, interrupting her thoughts. "I can swear to you never to erase your memory of anything again . . . without your express permission. It is my philosophy that our experiences, both good and bad, shape our character. It does us little good to constantly remove what is ill from our memory. Yes, it gives us peace from trauma, but it is hard to know if that serves us or harms us in the long run. There may even come a time, in the future, when you will beg me for my skill and I will need to deny you. Understand I will do so only because it is morally right and hopefully best for you in the long run. My heart, however, will wish only to spare you any and all pain."

Kane reached up to touch her face, his pinky coming to trace over the high sculpture of her exquisite cheekbone. He took that peaceful moment, his first in so many days, to marvel over the contrast of his dark skin in comparison to hers. Oh, yes, in that part of himself which he had left behind in that room in Noah's castle, his blood still raged for her. His body ached for her. But for that single sweet moment he could treasure this one gorgeous difference between them, and the spectacular way his darkness enhanced her crisp, clean beauty.

Her lashes were a brilliant red, as were her brows, perfect complements to her spiraling hair. Her skin was rich like peaches and cream, the way he remembered it from before she had become so ill and come so close to death.

"I think," she whispered softly, close to his lips, "I read your mind before."

The confession took him aback, almost completely shattering his control over the illusion they were dwelling in. It was things like this, easy distractions like this that marked him as a youth amongst Demons. But to be fair, he'd had no clue she'd walked in his thoughts, and the fact that she had was proof positive that they were becoming more and more bound together.

"It's . . . it's a mark of the Imprinting," he told her, "though I confess I had not expected it with you being so weakened."

"They were . . . very vehement thoughts. It wasn't like when you speak into my mind. That's much clearer. These were weaker, with almost an echo, and yet there was strong emotion attached. Yes-" she searched his eyes hard. "It was more like reading your emotions than your thoughts, although I heard the words. You said, I just need to get through tonight . . . I can give you the romance as well as the pa.s.sion. I can give you everything!'"

"It's true," he swore to her on a soft breath. "I know I'm behaving like a beast, taking advantage of the chemistry the Imprinting has created between us, but I don't want it to be all about chemistry, Corrine. I don't want you to think that predestination is all this is; that I'll take our connection or you for granted; that I'll treat this as something easy or a foregone conclusion."

If anything, Corrine thought, he had proven just the opposite. Every time she had been overwhelmed by the ferocious heat of the Hallowed moon, he had done something to negate her desire, to distract her from it or break it off. Even this very illusion had been a way of veering off and away from the need that had overwhelmed her. And she was new to it all. From what she was understanding, it was even worse for him, and he had been suffering it for ages.

"Kane," she said, "take us back."

"Back?" he questioned, his voice full of breath. He was a telepath. There was no need for him to doubt her intentions or what she said. It was just his way of dodging the onrush of emotion and excitement that was flooding him. "Don't you . . . wouldn't you rather be here? Free from . . . from the way I am back there?"

And the real point of the illusion he'd created became clear to her. If he was here, orchestrating this scenario with all his will and concentration, then he could not subject her to the beast lashed by her side. He was protecting her from him. Trying to buy himself some time from what she understood was inevitable torture. Even now, as she glanced upward into the night sky, she could see the stars vibrating, making white, unstable streaks in their bed of darkness. His focus was unraveling.

She reached up to cradle his face in both of her hands, brus.h.i.+ng her fingers over clean shaven contours that were much handsomer when they were real and covered in a brusque sheet of whiskers.

"Take me back," she breathed softly, her lips barely brus.h.i.+ng his.

"Corrine . . . I can't control . . ." He began to breathe hard, his hands coming to grip her by the back of her shoulders. The stars began to drop out of the sky, streaking down like burning cinders, the gra.s.s beneath her bare feet lost the texture of the individual blades, sliding like sand under her heels.

"Then don't."

"I don't want to hurt you," he swore harshly. "I don't want to be what I am back there."

"I'm going to take care of it. This time, I will provide the escape we need."

And like a sudden deluge of water, the sky dropped in a sudden cloak of blackness all around her.

Chapter 5.

Light resolved around her, the softness of the bed and the dampness of his skin jumped to life beneath her. In the span of a breath she was back in bed with him, back in that gaslit room. The moment she felt him for real beneath her, her body lit up as if it was on fire. The first difference she noticed between his illusion of himself and the reality was the rich, musky scent of his skin. It was like a personal sin, something created just for her, just to tempt her and fill her with heat. This time she welcomed the Samhain-driven need that filled her. Yes, she was throwing herself all in, having faith that everything she had learned was truth. Sometimes in order to reap the reward you wanted most, you had to take a risk. And somehow it didn't feel like so much of a risk. The burn sliding throughout her body was no illusion, no lie. It was as natural as anything could be.

Kane took in a slow breath, trying to order his thoughts and maintain control when he could barely hear over the noisy thumping of his heart. When she threw her leg over him and settled herself astride him, her s.e.x brushed soft and wet across the center of his belly, the heat burning and beautiful. His sharp senses fed her sweetly aroused aroma to him and he strangled out a groan that marked his tortured conscience and his having reached his physical limits.

"Corrine, you can't . . . make choices . . ." He broke off when she laid herself flush with his chest, her hands braced beside his shoulders as she tempted him with the hovering nearness of her ripe mouth.

"You can't make choices either. You said it yourself. There is no choice here. We are chemical. A reaction meant to be. It's true, isn't it?"

"You're supposed to be-"

"Resting? Healing? You know this will revive me more than anything else."

Corrine kissed him with a warmly teasing stroke of her mouth. She liked his mouth, with its too-pretty fullness and the distinctive carving of his upper lip set in relief by a few days' worth of beard shadow. She remembered his taste from earlier and she began to seek it in slow, delighted brushes against his mouth. She was going to take the time to discover the perks of this hunger they shared.

Kane felt the brush of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s on his chest, her nipples drawing across pectoral muscles amped with sensitivity to the feel of her. There was nothing like it. Never had been, never would be. It was the sensation created by a complementary chemistry unique only to them. Kane exhaled into her mouth as she nibbled temptingly at him in brief, tasty little kisses.

That was when what she had said finally sank into his hormone-befuddled brain. With a jolt he drew back from her and stared up into her clear green eyes. She was clever and smart, but this was beyond all of that.

"You read my thoughts," he whispered in stunned delight. "You read my thoughts!"

"Yes," she agreed simply, as if it weren't a profound sign of her mind and body awakening to her Druid genetics, as well as their special connection to each other. She shrugged as if she read minds all the time. "That's how I knew you were telling me the truth about all of this. That's how I knew why you were bound, Kane. And it's how I know that you're suffering terribly without me."

She kissed him softly, but Kane abruptly jerked free of her again. "So that's what this is? Some kind of pity f.u.c.k, Corrine? If that's the case, then you can just take your a.s.s off of me right now. I'll wait until you actually feel something for me, thank you very much."

Corrine reached to touch his face and he jolted away, but there was only so far he could go, trapped tightly as he was. She caught him between her hands and stared deeply into his eyes.

"I feel the same thing you do. Heat. Need. Craving that's driving you all but mad. I feel the biological imperative, just like you do. G.o.d, if you could feel inside me, Kane!" She was s.h.i.+fting against him, rubbing herself onto him until his belly was wetted by her and her sensual smell was driving into his spinning mind. Sweet Destiny, there was nothing he craved more than knowing what she felt like from the inside. And yet . . .

"I know," he croaked roughly, "I know all of this, Corrine. But you don't want a man for your body. You want one for your soul. That is what I want to be. Not just this!"

"See now, that's where you're wrong," she corrected him softly as she began to slide herself sinuously down the length of his body. "What I need is both, Kane. A lot of both." She sighed against his skin as she moved further along, her fingers toying with the already opened denim of his jeans. Next he knew she was stripping the fabric of his pants and briefs away, pus.h.i.+ng it past his knees where it wouldn't interfere with her plans. "I guess you can read my mind and figure out just how long it's been since I last had s.e.x," she noted.

"I could," he rasped. "But I'm a little distracted right now." He swallowed noisily when she touched the lightest stroke of fingertips up his bared thighs. "And I'm trying to figure out why you're suddenly willing to be with me like this."

She laughed, looking at him as if he were simpleminded. "Because I read your mind, Kane. For one little minute I saw everything you were thinking and feeling." Corrine reached out and touched a fingertip to the bottom of his up-thrust shaft. Slowly, as she spoke, she drew her finger up his hot length. He was scorching the pad of her finger as she tested the texture of his soft skin and hard excitement. That burning level of heat was almost as fascinating to her as the scent of him, rich and male and ready, as it drifted around her. "I saw hours and hours of resistance against something impossible to bear up under. I saw how afraid you were that you'd hurt me. I felt how guilty you feel because of what has happened to me. It was all tumbled together at the very front of your mind, fresh and deeply affecting you." She reached the tip of his erection and took the time to tease the ragingly sensitive nerves there with brushes of that mischievous fingertip. "Don't you see? That's all I've ever wanted, Kane. Someone who cares about me more than he does himself." She looked up at him, a sly smile tilting one corner of her pretty mouth, making his already tight gut clench with fiery response. "Well, electrifying s.e.x would be good too. So let's see if you can hit two for two."

"Ah, h.e.l.l! Tied up?" he ejected in frustration.

"Hmm. Good point. Guess I'll do all the work this time. You can make it up to me later."

With an upward glide of warm skin stroking fully against him, she slid herself back into her position astride his hips, and this time she caught him directly between her thighs, the wet heat of her s.e.x stroking suggestively over his pulsing erection.

Kane could hardly bear the sensation after holding himself in check for so very long. It was like a toxic dream materializing into full-bodied reality. He knew she was too weak and damaged to be playing the seductress the way she was, but the truth was that the more they satisfied the demands of nature, the faster she would heal. He couldn't possibly get any closer than inside of her, and the energy exchanged in a s.e.xual encounter would be phenomenal.

Just having her at last would be phenomenal.

But...

"And in the dawn, sweetheart?" he asked as she began to rain soft, seeking kisses over his face and neck. "Are you going to wake to your world of light and realize you don't want to live in the night with me? Will you want to run from me then? Loathe me?"

The question gave her pause and she tilted her head to look at him in curiosity. Kane could have easily read her thoughts in that moment, no waiting necessary, but fear gripped him and he couldn't bear the idea that she would want to shed him like a bad dream if only given half a chance.

"Kane," she said, soft admonishment lilting out of her as she kissed his mouth with heavenly sweetness. "I've always known that in order to enjoy a mate who thinks of me before himself, I would have to do exactly the same in return. No one can earn such devotion without expecting to be required to return it."

Kane surged up into her kiss suddenly, catching her mouth as deeply as he could, kissing her so hard that he knew she felt the impact her sweetly optimistic vision of their future together had had on him. It was why he'd fallen for her in the first place. Pain and betrayal littered her history, yet she always hoped for the best . . . searched for the dream she had longed for, the one she'd had imbedded in her soul when she'd been born for him.

Corrine swallowed down his intensity and, using the lash of her tongue, she stirred up even more within him. His bold taste burned all the way down into her belly and she devoured him in utter starvation. She was needy and stripped clean of energy, and only he could fill her up again. She kissed him until neither could catch their breath. She slid herself over him again and again, absently stroking his hard flesh over her sensitive c.l.i.t until her entire body was humming with sensitive preparedness.

Kane broke away from her for the breath he needed to shout out in fury. "d.a.m.n you, Abram, let me out of these cursed chains and give me my hands!"

The Elder Demon who was preventing his ability to teleport ignored the demand once again. No matter what happened, only Noah's command would sway Kane's Siddah. And, of course, Abram had no idea where the Demon King was and no inclination to disturb him.

"Hush," his mate scolded him as she let her moist lips trail hot kisses down his body. "I always wanted a man completely at my mercy. Don't spoil my fun."

The Mind Demon ejected an unintelligible sound she took as capitulation as she ran her tongue along the arches of his lower ribs, and then moved slowly down his belly, breathing hotly over every wet place she made or discovered. Skirting his navel, she licked down the furred line of hair leading to his groin. Her free hand wrapped around him to keep him out of her path until she was good and ready to pay attention to him. His p.e.n.i.s was drenched with her juices, transferred as she'd ridden against him. She used this to her advantage and stroked him heavily until she deemed herself ready to take a taste of him.

The touch of her tongue burned a wildfire reaction up his shaft and Kane's entire body seized with the sensation. He gasped, dizzy and agonized by her teasing, frankly shocked he didn't burst right then and there. He was watching as she slowly swiped her tongue across the head of his erection, licking away the copious pearly liquid weeping freely from it. The vision of her was such a magnificent sight to him, the stuff of his most forbidden fantasies. The savage sound and emotion roiling out of him as she drew him deeper into her mouth abruptly reminded him that she was still mostly human, while as a Demon suffering from the need to rut, he was a very savage and different beast. Her deprivation of energy had stunted her change, a change that was supposed to have made her able to bear the fierce brunt of Demon lovemaking.

Suddenly he was glad he was lashed down good and tight. The way she was making him feel right then, he'd probably have thrown her down and torn her apart with his intensity. Even so he couldn't help the blind need to thrust against her devilish little tongue. But she clearly didn't want him getting any ideas of his own, so she released him from her mouth and went back to her position astride him. Settling herself hot and wet against him, but not taking him inside yet, she leaned forward to dance the tip of one breast against his lips. He caught her suddenly and sharply with his teeth, making her gasp.

Tease me, will you? he thought fiercely into her mind.