Page 8 of Soul Redeemed

“I’m sorry!” Thais kicked herself back, eyes wide with panic. “I must’ve … I just got carried away! You felt …. I’m sorry!”

Falling forward, Calix held himself up on one arm, the flames of tension seething through his veins. He needed to come. If he didn’t, he’d turn. He’d drain the woman in front of him and every other woman in the place. And they’d let him. They’d fall at his feet like demon sacrifices, thanks to his pheromones.

“You have to finish. I can see it … you’re turning. Please, let me help you.”

“No!” Calix roared, but as much as his mind urged him to get away from her, his body wouldn’t move.

“I won’t touch you. No fantasy.” She tipped her head, eyes narrowing as she continued to study him. “Your scars. I didn’t notice before.” A quick glance at his eyes, and hers trailed back to his throat, while the marks of his collar had undoubtedly begun to poke through the redness of his skin. It happened whenever Calix reached the point of starvation, a hunger he hadn’t suffered in centuries. “You were a slave.” Her brows creased as flickers of his past zipped through his mind. Flickers she could surely see. Chains. Demortis. Hellsfire. “What did they do to you?”

“Enough!” Calix growled, lurching toward her. Fury, the kind that held no meaning but only crazed thoughts of pain, slammed inside his head and set his bones aflame. He could snap the female’s neck, watch her eyes turn from curiosity to the vacancy of absolute death. “I should kill you for what you did just now.”

Again, his body begged him to get out of there, but he remained paralyzed on all three’s, his left hand gripped tight around his throbbing shaft.

“Feshjule!” He shook violently as his needs swarmed his mind, threatening to overpower the last threads of self-control that kept him from tackling the female and turning her the fuck out.

“It was just a fantasy. We didn’t really—”

“I don’t give a fuck! It felt real!” Another zap of pain hit his groin, and he curled into it as shards of broken glass rolled inside his stomach. “Ah, fuck!”

A soft chant reached his ears, spoken in the ancient tongue Calix knew from his youth. His head grew dizzy, the room spinning around him, and he rested his forehead against the soft cotton sleeping bag. Warmth spilled into his veins, like lying a cozy bed with Ava in his arms, and his entire body suddenly drained. He lazily rubbed his hand along his shaft, so relaxed and content, he didn’t want the feeling to end. For the first time in months, jacking off felt fucking good. So good, his spine tingled with a warning. Head pressed into the concrete, he stroked faster, fingers curled into the sleeping bags.

The chanting grew louder, faster, more staccato than before. His senses filled with the heady aroma of warm pussy, watering his mouth as if he could damn near taste it on his tongue. Fuck, yeah. Fuck, yeah. Fuck, yeah.

His muscles tensed up, body trembling as the orgasm made a slow climb along his spine. Balls drawn tight, Calix opened his mouth to a silent roar, and with the first shot of climax, his ass lifted, back bowed up while he rode out the explosion of ecstasy that hit the back of his skull.

“Fuck! Gods, fuck!” His hand still slipping along his cock, his muscles tightened and trembled. Another pleasure blast exploded behind his eyes with a second climax, and the small pulses that followed beat out a third and a fourth. An incubus could come as many as a dozen times in one round of sex, which was why females generally ended up pregnant if they happened to be bonded. A demon, though, rarely ejaculated unless bonded, or tricked. Only the slick pre-cum lubed his strokes as Calix slowed them. Finally abandoning his cock, he breathed hard, still bent over himself on the floor.

“Gods of Obsidius, I’ve never seen anything so beautiful.”

Calix finally lifted his head to Thais, as she sat with her legs crossed and trembling. Only then did he notice the swirls of black ink along her neck—demonic symbols associated with black magic. “What did you do?” He spoke in a dry, husky voice that didn’t quite match the calm and serenity washing over him.

“Just something to ease you a bit. Sort of like a demon cure for impotence.” Her eyes widened as she sucked in a gasp. “Not that you’re impotent. It just helps you relax.”

“How?” Even he could tell it was temporary, by the way his muscles flickered with tension again. He’d starved himself for too long to get relief from a single jacking off, but it was the best he’d felt in months.

She shrugged. “Just something I do.” Her knees knocked together and Calix could see she struggled to keep her legs closed—an effect of watching an incubus come. The final pheromones during climax worked like Viagra for women, turning them submissive, pliant, and sex worked like a powerful weapon for the incubi. The female had begun to succumb as her ass ground into the sleeping bag. “Gods, I need to come so bad right now.”

Pushing off the floor, Calix rose to a stand and slid his shirt on, followed by his jeans and boots, until fully dressed once more, staring down at her. “I’m sure you’ll find relief upstairs,” he said, striding back toward the staircase.

Had he finished her, she’d be satisfied for days, but after the shit she pulled earlier, Calix couldn’t give a damn if she writhed in pain. He shouldn’t have trusted her. The Fallen were tricky, and it sucked that he’d become so desperate as to seek one out.

“Please!” Her voice echoed through the basement as he made his way back to the staircase. “I helped you! Please don’t leave me like this.”

She hadn’t helped him, though. Had he come inside Ava, or at least the Ava in his head, his body would’ve taken it as the real deal. He would’ve been good for a while. Unfortunately, he’d gotten a taste of sex with another woman—something he’d tried to avoid for months. Because his dick suddenly remembered how fan-fucking-tastic it felt to be inside a female.

And the next time his cravings hit, he could damn well take what he wanted by force.

4

Three days. Tucked into the corner of the damp, cold room, Ava mumbled to herself, her face buried into her knees so as not to rouse the Sang that hung from the ceiling like bats. Progenitors, she’d heard Oliver call them. The darkness in the room gave no indication of time itself. Only Oliver arriving to check on her between long intervals, as he had each morning, suggested that entire days had passed between.

Prayers. She’d never prayed for anything in her life. Not when her father had tormented her as a child, not when her mother abandoned her and Ryke in a back alley, forcing them to survive amongst a host of predatory demons, and not even when Ryke had turned on her, giving new meaning to living in hell. No, she’d always been a survivor, taking care of herself without use for prayers.

Until then.

“Gods of Obsidius, forgive me for my insolence, for I lack understanding. Forgive my transgressions, for I lack direction. Restore my faith, and I shall continue to worship you for all of my immortal life.” Straining her muscles, she pulled her knees tighter to her body and squeezed her eyes, concentrating on the next words. “Protect me from this uncertain demise. Grant me this prayer, and I vow to walk this earth in your name.”

For three days, she’d sat in the room like a fly caught in a spider’s web, waiting for one of the creatures to swoop down and bring her nightmares to life. For whatever reason, they’d kept their distance from her, watching her with their glowing eyes in the darkness.