Pleasure Unbound

Chapter 16

Eidolon’s apartment didn’t resemble anything even close to the dark, dank lair she’d expected. Then again, after seeing his car and how he dressed, she had no idea why she should have expected anything less than a Manhattan high-rise that probably cost more per month than she’d paid for her apartment in two years.

“This is so wrong,” she muttered, as she set her weapons bag and duffel on the floor.

Eidolon pulled Mickey out of his jacket pocket and closed his front door. “What is?”

“This. You should be living in a sewer or something,” she said, but her voice lacked conviction, because she’d seen more than foulness in him and it was getting harder and harder to hold on to her principles.

Especially since the people she’d believed shared her convictions had tried to kill her. Twice. Oh, and because she was a demon herself. Small details.

“I couldn’t find a sewer with a view.” He put Mickey down, along with his litter box.

“So where’s your dog? Did you eat it after all?”

“While you were packing I called the lady who walks him and asked if she could take the mangy thing for a few days. Wasn’t sure how he’d react to the weasel.”

Somewhere in the house, a grandfather clock chimed. “Mangy thing? Don’t like him much?”

“He keeps me company.” The words were casual, spoken with a shrug, but the underlying affection in his voice gave him away. He liked his mangy mutt.

He took her bags, and she followed him down the hall, complete with oil paintings of medieval castles and ch?teaus on the walls, to a bedroom. The room was huge, richly decorated in masculine shades of brown and burgundy. The four-poster bed had to be custom-made, larger than a king-size. How odd.

Then it struck her, and she bit off a gasp. The bed had been made to accommodate more than two people.

“This is your room,” she whispered. “I saw a guest room back there…”

He dropped the bags on the polished wood floor and in a flash, framed her face in his warm hands. “We’re beyond that.” He brought his head down to her neck, his lips caressing her skin. “You sleep with me.”

Like a real couple. Way too intimate. “I don’t want to.”

He inhaled deeply. “Don’t lie to me, Tayla. I can smell your desire.”

God, that sense of smell of his was a pain in the ass. “I need space.”

“The bed is big enough to give you that.”

“It’s big enough to give an entire cheerleading squad space.”

She felt him smile against her skin. “You almost sound jealous.”

“You’re delusional.”

“And you should get some rest.” He stepped back, surprising her, but one fingertip stroked her jaw line lightly. “You’ve had a hard day. If you want to shower, the bathroom is to the right. Robes are in the closet.” He cocked a dark eyebrow. “You didn’t really get into a fight with a Daeva, did you?”

“No.” God, what she wouldn’t give for this entire day to rewind and start all over. “Look, about the half-demon thing… what evidence do you have? Or are you screwing with me?” It was a measure of her exhaustion that she came right out and asked if he was lying to her, but the day had gone to hell in a handbasket, and she just wanted a straight answer.

“Come with me.”

She followed him back down the hall to a room nearly as large as his bedroom, but cozier. The walls were lined with full bookshelves, many titles in languages she couldn’t read. A desk took up one corner, a leather couch took up an entire wall. Black marble tile on the floor reflected light instead of darkening the room as she might have expected.

Eidolon pulled a leather-bound book from one of the shelves and flipped it open to a blank page. Closing his eyes, he waved his hand over the parchment. A glow sprang up under his palm, and when he removed it, a pulsing, shiny—wet—picture of bloody internal organs appeared.

“First of all, that’s nasty. Second, how did you do that?”

“It’s a medical text. I wrote it. On these two pages, I can visualize anything I’ve seen, and it’ll temporarily appear like a living photo.”

“Cool. But eew. What’s that supposed to be?”

“That’s your open abdomen.”

She recoiled. “I’m no medical expert, but that doesn’t look right. Are you sure?”

“I was up close and personal,” he said grimly. “These are your organs. They’re misshapen. Formed from a union of two different species. And no, it’s not a human birth defect.”

She wheeled away as though she could escape what he was saying. “I still can’t believe this. My mom wouldn’t have kept me. She wouldn’t have wanted me if some demon had—”

“She probably didn’t know.”

“But how—” She cut herself off, because yeah, stupid question. “An incubus.”

“That’s a likely scenario.”

The conversation they’d had at her apartment before she knocked him over the head with the pipe came back to her, along with a glimmer of hope. “Wait… you said incubi only have male offspring.”

“No, I said Seminus demons produce only male offspring. Other breeds of incubi can produce both males and females.”

She really was a demon, and there was no point in denying it any longer. She hated what he was saying, but none of it truly surprised her, if she was being honest with herself. Even as a child, she’d been different from the other kids. More intuitive. Her vision had been off-the-charts perfect. As she got older, her other senses had become more acute.

And her ability to empathize and sympathize with other humans had taken a dive.

“So what’s going to happen to me? Your brother said the demon DNA is taking over. Am I going to turn into some horrible beast?” She’d kill herself before she allowed that to happen.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? You don’t know?” A bitter laugh escaped her. “You’re supposed to be a doctor. A demon doctor.” She waved at the books on the shelves. “You have demon sorcery at your disposal, and you don’t know?”

“There’s something I do know. My brother was right.” He propped a hip on his desk, stretched one long leg out in front of him. “The demon DNA is aggressive. It’s trying to take over rather than merge with your human DNA. That’s why you’re having problems. There’s a question what, exactly, you’ll turn into, but you will turn. Or you’ll die.”

“Dying is better than the alternative.”

He shook his head. “There’s another option.”

“Yeah, I can eat a bullet before either of the other two happens.”

“No. With Shade’s help, I think we can integrate your human and demon DNA. Basically, it’ll give you the biology and form you should have been born with.”

“Which is what? Right. You don’t know. So if I do nothing, I either die or turn into a monster?”

The antique clock on the wall ticked away several seconds of silence. “That about sums it up.”

“Wow,” she said quietly, “my future looks pretty bleak.” Worse than bleak. The only thing she had to look forward to was her own death. Then again, she’d never had anything else to look forward to, so this was nothing new. She trailed a finger over the books on the shelves. “So I’m a ticking time bomb. Any idea when I’ll go off?”

“I don’t know,” he said, shoving his fingers through his hair in that way he did when he was frustrated.

“For a doctor, you don’t know all that much.”

The raised gold lettering on one fat tome made her pause. “Daemonica.” She drew it out, frowning. “A demon bible?”

“In essence. It’s the other side of the story.”

“So, what do the minions of darkness say happened in the beginning?”

“Do you really care?”

“Yeah.” She weighed the book in her hands, expecting it to burn her, but it just sat there, a cold weight. “It’s always good to know how the other side thinks.”

Except, he was no longer the other side.

Eidolon folded his arms across his chest and stretched his long legs out in front of him, crossing them at the ankles. “Basically, demon lore says that after Satan was banished from Heaven, he was allowed to create his own races. But, because humans are born good and can be turned evil, God insisted that the same, but opposite, should apply to creatures born evil. Satan created some species from his own twisted imagination, and others… he used animals as foundations for some, humans for the rest.”

“Which is why demons can appear human.”

He nodded. “Some species are a cross between animals and humans. Shapeshifters, for example. And some species are more inherently evil than others. There are species and individuals who strive to be good.”

“Good? So… they don’t worship Satan? They aren’t walking hand in hand with the guy?”

“Some of us even doubt his existence. Just as there are humans who don’t believe in God, there are demons who don’t believe in the Lord of Darkness.”

“So you’ve never seen him?”

“Have you seen God?”

“That’s not how it works.”

“Exactly. When humans speak of seeing divine energies, they’re talking about angels. We have dresdiin. And for the record, many of us consider your God to be the supreme ruler. Others worship—or, at least, acknowledge—both. The Two Gods.”

“That doesn’t seem possible.”

“That any of us can be less than evil? Do you not see that sometimes, something goes wrong at conception, and some humans are born evil? Or they turn evil?”

“I suppose.”

“Imagine that the opposite happens in the demon world. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Yin-yang. You can’t have one extreme without the other. So in the demon world, some of the most heinous races sometimes experience an anomaly. I knew a Cruentus once who wanted nothing more than to work in the hospital. He was slaughtered by his own family for his behavior. The world isn’t as black and white as you think, Tayla.”

“Believe me, I’m starting to figure that out.” She rubbed her temples, wondering if her life would ever be normal. Not that she knew what normal was. From the moment she was born on the floor of an abandoned warehouse, premature and addicted to heroin, everything had been out of whack.

“Tayla, let me get Shade over here, and we’ll help you.”

She shook her head. “I can’t.”

“What are you afraid of?”

“Afraid of? Oh, well, maybe I’m afraid of losing myself. Of turning into everything I’ve ever hated. I’d rather die than turn into something I don’t even recognize.” He looked as if he understood, and she remembered what he’d said about his upcoming transition. “I don’t see you embracing your own change.”

“That’s different. I know what I’m going to become. You don’t. You have a chance at becoming something better.”

“Better? How is turning into a demon better?”

“Says the human whose own kind tried to kill her.”

Tayla chomped down hard, her teeth grinding. “Go to hell.”

“You don’t get it, do you? This is hell.”

She snorted. “Yeah, well, you aren’t exactly fun and games yourself.”

“I was talking about earth. There are no fires, no burning pits of torment, no levels or rings or rivers of lava. When we die, we get put right back on earth to live our miserable existences over and over and over for all eternity.”

Her head spun at what he was saying, things that went against everything she’d ever been taught at Bible school the few times she’d been forced to go by foster families, and by The Aegis. “That makes no sense.”

“There is no hell,” he said flatly. “Not like you mean. Our world works like yours. You die, you go to the Other Side. We die, we go to the Nether Side. We’re reborn to earth, though most demon species live far below the earth’s crust, in what we call Sheoul. It’s where I grew up. It’s cavernous, dark, confining. Demons want out, and will do whatever they can to bring about an event that will allow them to live on the surface.”

“An event?”

“Imagine what you call the Rapture. Armageddon. The Apocalypse. According to a variety of human religions, the righteous will go to heaven and leave nothing but evil on earth, which is what we call the Reclamation. Earth will then be hell. There is no need for a fiery pit.”

He gestured to the book she still held in her hands. “The Daemonica tells us that human sinners are reincarnated, given another chance to change their ways so that the next time they die, they can go to what many of you call heaven, or the Other Side. When the Reclamation finally comes, that will be the end of redemption. This is what evil wants. A world where the numbers are static and suffering will be eternal.” He speared her with a flat, black stare. “That will be demon heaven. At least, for some demons.”

It was all too much. Too complicated. Black, white, shades of gray, an occasional splash of blood red. She wanted simple, and she didn’t care how she got it. “Hellboy?”

“What?”

“Touch me. Make me forget all this.”

He was on her in an instant, took her down to the floor before she could blink.

Hundreds of females had solicited Eidolon for sex. But never in his eighty years of sexual maturity had one desired sex for something other than a release. He didn’t know how to offer comfort; his healing skills were limited to clinical knowledge of anatomy. But the way Tayla was clinging to him told him she needed more than just sex, even if she wasn’t aware of that fact.

A small sound of desperation escaped her as he tore through the scrub top. He cupped one breast through her bra, running his thumb over the creamy swell that overflowed the cotton cup.

“You’re so beautiful, Tayla.” And she was. He’d always preferred humanoid partners, had sought out the most attractive females. Tayla wasn’t classically beautiful, but her fresh, earthy looks drew his eyes in a way no other female ever had.

His words must have been exactly what she needed, because she sighed and arched into his touch, the small of her back coming completely off the floor. He should move them to the couch, but she wrapped her legs around his waist and his thoughts of comfort scattered.

Somehow, he managed to get out of his jeans without breaking the scissorlock of her thighs around his hips, managed to divest her of her clothing while her lips were sucking lightly on his collarbone. Her scent rose up, filling his nostrils with the sweet fragrance of arousal. Inhaling deeply, he let the passion high take over until his head swam with lust.

“I love it when your eyes change color,” she murmured, and he suddenly wanted to kiss her, a real kiss, not one like they’d shared the first time they’d had sex, when she was still in a dream state thanks to Wraith’s head games. Not like the one they’d shared today in the exam room, when he’d been overcome by s’genesis urges.

As though she’d read his mind, her gaze dropped to his mouth, and her tongue darted out to moisten her bottom lip. Gods, he wanted to take her mouth, but there was no way he’d be gentle, what she needed right now.

Careful to avoid her stitches, he dipped his head and tongued a nipple, eliciting a soft moan from her.

“You taste like me,” he said, savoring his dark essence in the salt of her sweat. He hadn’t come inside her since that day at the hospital, but her body was still processing his fluids, keeping her primed, ultrareceptive. “Only me.”

His cock throbbed against her wet entrance, but he resisted the urge to possess her. Not yet. The doctor in him wanted to heal her with his touch more than the demon in him wanted to get off.

That had never happened before.

It scared the hell out of him.

Something scared her, too, because suddenly she was pushing against him. “I can’t do this. Oh, my God, I can’t do this!”

He reared back, confused, his body on fire. “What’s wrong?”

She scrambled backward, sliding on the slick floor. “It’s just… I can’t… I can’t want…” She buried her face in her hands. “The other times, it was different.”

Something inside him went cold, even though his body burned. “Because the other times you convinced yourself that you were being forced or coerced.”

She nodded. “I’m sorry.”

“Tayla, look at me.” When she didn’t, he reached for her, which sent her into a wild flurry of motion. She swept up her clothes but slipped when she tried to get to her feet, and instead made a mad crawl toward the couch. Her curvy ass flexed as she moved, and her sex, glistening with her arousal, made for a sight that short-circuited his brain.

His blood went south, and animal instinct took over. He pounced, grasped her around the waist, and brought her ass hard against his stomach. His erection pressed against her bottom, and he shook with the need to take her. In his arms, she struggled, and he let her because she needed to think she was resisting and if this was the only way he could have her… he sheathed himself inside her in one stroke. She cried out at the sudden invasion, her fingers clawing at the floor as she tried to escape.

The scent of fear, nearly masked by the more potent scent of lust, rose up from her, hitting him upside the head. Sonofabitch, he wasn’t healing her, he was scaring her. His mind told him to stop, but his hips ground into her, his body rebelling against what his head was telling him to do.

“Please…”

Shit. With a roar, he tore himself away. Instantly, a firestorm of agony ripped through his gut. Still on his knees, he doubled over, sucking air through his teeth.

“Hellboy?” Tayla’s hand came down on his shoulder, and he hissed at the sensation that was only going to get him lust-drunk again.

“Get away from me.”

“But—”

His snarl vibrated the light fixtures on the walls. “I can’t control myself right now! Stay away.” Pain screamed in his pelvis. His balls tightened, pulsed as if they’d been caught in a vise. Hands shaking, he reached for his pants. He had to find a female. Fast. Being this worked up was crippling, and the pain wouldn’t ease until he found release.

The idea of taking a female other than Tayla only added to the agony.

“What are you doing?”

He spoke through clenched teeth, struggling for every word. “Hospital.” Oh, unholy hell… railroad spikes of hurt hammered into his pelvis. “Sora… demon… maybe.” He didn’t realize he had been muttering out loud until her fingers gouged his shoulder.

“You’re going to… to be with someone else?”

“Have to. Hurts.” He panted, reining in as much pain as he could. “Can’t take care of it myself.”

“Oh.” She rolled her bottom lip between her teeth, and he groaned. “I’m sorry. I just—”

“I get it. Fuck, I get it. You can’t admit you want me.” Jerking out of her grip, he closed his eyes and prayed he’d make it to the hospital without attacking the first female—demon or human—he saw. “Next time, do me a favor and decide that before you tell me to touch you.”

He started to push to his feet, but she grasped his thigh, too close to where he really needed her hand, and sweat popped out on his brow.

“Please. Don’t go.” Still on her hands and knees, she turned, offering herself to him. Blood pounded in his head at the sight of her, sleek and toned and watching him over her shoulder, ready to be mounted.

“Be sure,” he croaked. “Because I can’t stop again.”

“I’m sure.”

It was all he needed. Going to his knees, he entered her so hard and deep that they both shouted. Her tight walls pulled him inside, her slick heat holding him like a velvet glove. He was already close to the edge, and the way she moved against him, grinding, arching like a cat, drove him to the very brink of insanity.

The friction was electric, the rhythm furious. Heat shot like liquid flame from his balls through his shaft and shit, he was done for.

“Tayla…”

Gripping her hips, he lifted her so she was helpless, at his mercy as he pumped into her. Her sexy whimpers blended with the sound of his harsh breathing until his roar of release drowned out everything else.

She milked his cock, took it all, and though she wouldn’t come, he knew his flow warmed her, caressed her, gave her intense pleasure all the same.

What he’d given her couldn’t come close to what she’d given him. Being inside her rivaled the adrenaline rush he lived for at the hospital. The sounds she made, the smell of her arousal, the taste of her skin… stripped him of thought and logic and reduced him to a creature of pure emotion and desire. Total body ecstasy such as he’d never known.

Heart pounding, breath erratic, he collapsed onto her back and they both crumpled to the floor. He wriggled so they were on their sides, spooning. He was still inside her, hugged by her tight, wet warmth as he hugged her in his arms.

Tayla shivered despite the steamy heat surrounding her, flowing through her, consuming her. She wasn’t entirely sure what had just happened, except that she’d freaked. She’d asked Eidolon for comfort, and when he’d tried to give it, she’d been unable to process the emotions he’d awakened. What she’d assumed would be a hard, fast fuck turned into something else she couldn’t handle.

Her signals had been so mixed it was no wonder he hadn’t known whether to stop or go, and he’d chosen to detour. Right into the arms of another female.

Except it hadn’t been a choice for him. His physical pain had been obvious. Teeth clenched, cords in his neck straining, he’d been pale, sweating, every vein popping like it was going to burst.

“Hellboy?”

He traced the shell of her ear with his tongue. “Hmm?” His voice was deep, wonderfully gravelly.

“You can’t ever…?”

“No.” He began moving again, slow, easy thrusts that built sensation into a slow burn instead of the white-hot, explosive heat they usually shared. “Release can’t come by my own hand.”

Funny, since she achieved release only by her own hand. Even then, reaching climax was always a crapshoot. But with Eidolon, it almost seemed achievable. Even now, every languid stroke massaged her from the inside in ways she’d never believed possible. Her heightened senses tingled, the pleasure streaking through her flesh until she was shaking from the intensity of it.

Eidolon held her tight against him as though afraid she’d run away, but that wasn’t going to happen. She’d never experienced a moment so sensual, so pleasure-rich. Never had a man taken the time to hold her, to make her enjoy being naked.

Hot breath whispered over the back of her neck as Eidolon nuzzled her there, and she groaned when his tongue traced a path along her collarbone.

“Beautiful,” he murmured against her skin, and then sank his teeth lightly into the sensitive curve between her shoulder and throat. For a moment he held her like that, restraining her with primitive force as he rocked against her. Then she felt the warm stroke of his tongue soothing the spot he’d bitten. “I want to try again to make you come. Will you let me?”

She closed her eyes, unsure if she wanted to experience that kind of frustration again, but her body was screaming for release, was already so close… maybe this time she could go over the edge.

“Yes,” she said, and then she couldn’t speak because his thrusts picked up speed until he was pounding into her with enough force to slam her exhalations out of her with audible gasps.

She felt him swell, stiffen, as he dropped one hand to her sex to spread her. His shaft slipped out of her and slid between her spread folds. Moaning at the sudden, sharp, sliding strokes through her cleft, she cupped his sex with her hand, holding him against her as he came. His hot seed creamed over her sensitive tissue in a silken flood.

Behind her, he panted, his chest heaving against her back. His hard length still moved between her thighs, a hot, erotic presence that fueled the desire burning at her core. But like before, she hovered on the precipice that would go nowhere.

“Stop,” she rasped. “Get it off.”

The sound of fabric rustling accompanied some truly vile curses, and then he was wiping her clean, every stroke against her center a torture that kept her on the verge of climax.

“You should bottle that stuff,” she said, when she could speak again. “I’ll bet normal women would pay a fortune for it.”

He tossed the scrub top he’d used on her across the room. “No doubt it’s a black market commodity somewhere.”

She sensed more than saw the tension that filled him. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” he muttered. “But… what if those bastards start thinking the same thing?”

She rolled to face him. “You mean, they might take one of your species? And what, keep him chained? Jerk him off a few times a day?”

Scowling, he pushed up on one arm. “You still don’t care, do you?”

“That’s not what I meant.” She covered his hand with hers, was glad when he didn’t pull away.

“Based on how they seem to get off on torture, I doubt gathering semen would be pleasant. Most likely they’d insert a draining tube and take it as it’s produced.”

She shuddered. The thought of their doing something like that to Eidolon…

He reached over his head and pulled a blanket off the couch to cover her. “Tayla? Why do you have sex if you don’t enjoy it?”

Talk about a mood-killer. She sat up and pulled the blanket around her. “Why the sudden interest in my sex life?” Or lack thereof.

Eidolon remained stretched out on the floor, but he propped his head up on one fist. “I’m wondering what makes you tick.”

“There’s not much to tell.”

“Then tell me how it began.”

The concern in his voice was enough to remind her that she was messed up in the sex arena, and man, did she hate reminders. “Tell you what, Hellboy. You tell me first.”

“Fair enough.” He cocked one leg up, drawing her eyes to the place between, where his sex, glistening from her juices, lay heavy and semierect on one thigh. “I was twenty when the urges started.”

“Twenty? That seems sort of late.”

“When you live to be seven hundred years old, twenty is a drop in the bedpan,” he drawled. “When the urges start, sex is required to complete the maturation process.”

“How much sex?”

He shrugged. “Pretty much constant for a few days. It can be hard on a lot of us, but my parents bought me an orgesu.” At her blank stare, he elaborated. “A female to have on hand.”

“A sex slave? Your parents got you a sex slave? To have sex in their house?”

“It was the logical thing to do. They couldn’t let me die. And they didn’t want me out prowling and raping as a lot of my kind are driven to do during that phase.” He yawned, as if it were all normal. “Besides, they paid to have her released from slavery afterward.”

She couldn’t even come close to imagining how he’d grown up if he could be so casual about the sex slave thing. “Where did you grow up? Do your parents look human?”

His fingers brushed her cheek in a feather-light caress. “They are humanoid, but their green skin and antlers keeps them in Sheoul. It’s where I grew up, though I slipped away to come topside now and then.” He winked. “I was the rebel of the family.”

Tayla laughed at that. He definitely didn’t strike her as the trouble-making kind. “When did you join us up here in the sunlight?”

“After my first transition.” He rolled one big shoulder. “Now, enough about me. Your turn.”

“You mean, when did I lose my virginity?”

“Yeah.”

Well, shit. Her experience with sex seemed so vanilla now. “I was fourteen.”

He slipped his hand down, trailed a finger over the skin of her hip that peeked through the blanket. “That’s young for a human.”

“Yeah, well, I was a wild child. My mom was an addict and my grandparents were in a nursing home, so I was living in foster care with people who couldn’t control me. I did what I wanted, when I wanted, and I did it with my boyfriend after we got drunk at a party.” She slid a glance at him, but he didn’t judge, merely watched her curiously. “It kinda hurt. Was over in about three seconds. Earth didn’t move. So I wasn’t in a hurry to do it again. Right after that, my mom got clean and got custody of me, and I was so busy for two years that I sort of forgot about boys.”

“Then what?”

It went against her nature to talk about this stuff, but his touch soothed her, coaxed her, lulled her into a place that felt foreign… but somehow right. The way he touched her cut right through all her defenses and left marks on her that couldn’t be seen but were there nevertheless. Why he would waste his time with her, an enemy who had clawed her way out of the gutter only because Ky had rescued her from the life of a rodent, was beyond her, but for now, she wouldn’t question his motives.

“My mom was killed,” she said quietly. “I went to yet another foster home, and one night, my foster dad came into my room.” Eidolon’s hand that had been stroking her hip stilled, and a low-level rumble came from deep in his throat. “We fought. I took off. Later, he was found dead, and a warrant was issued for my arrest.”

“I’m glad you killed the bastard.”

“I didn’t. He was beat up, but alive when I left him. I think one of the other kids he molested killed him while he was incapacitated.” She shrugged, and his hand went back to stroking her.

“What did you do after that?”

“I lived on the streets. I did what I had to in order to survive. It wasn’t pretty.”

Silence stretched between them. Maybe she shouldn’t have told him the truth. Maybe he was disgusted. Yeah, a demon who once kept a sex slave, disgusted. Please.

His fingers closed around her ankle, and she found herself lying on the floor again, his heavy thigh pinning hers down, his chest covering hers. “Is that what you’re doing now?” he murmured, his warm, strong hand stroking her cheek. “Are you doing what you have to in order to survive? Are you fucking me because you need a roof over your head?”

Tay’s first instinct was to get angry. But she was suddenly too tired to fight anymore. Especially because he knew she wasn’t sleeping with him in order to have a place to stay or to get protection or money or whatever. He wanted her to admit that something had changed between them, that she’d wanted him, not what he could give her.

“Please don’t make me answer that.”

He drew her close, and for a moment she reveled in his embrace, something she doubted he gave often. It was certainly something she didn’t get often. Come to think of it, it was something she’d really never had. She couldn’t remember a single instance where even her mother had hugged her. It wasn’t that her mother hadn’t loved her, but there had always been a wall of guilt between them, one her mother had constructed out of the shame she’d felt for abandoning Tayla, a wall Tay hadn’t been able to topple no matter how hard she’d tried to bring her mom into the secret mother-daughter fantasy Tayla had dreamed of. The one where they were best friends. Where they could bake together and laugh at chick flicks while curled up on the couch on Saturday nights.

Yeah, her fantasies had been lame, but anything was better than the reality of cleaning up her mom’s puke and hiding her crack pipe from the cops.

Anxious to escape the memories as well as the man who was making her think about them, she pushed away from Eidolon… and froze as the floor lit up beneath them.

“What is that?” She sat up, found that they were inside a pentagram, outlined in blue lights.

Eidolon’s expression went stony, completely flat and emotionless. “Make yourself comfortable for a while. I’ve been summoned for punishment.”

“For what?”

“For killing a human.”