“For what? A movie? Dinner?”
She looked at him as if he were an idiot. “For sex, of course.”
His dick pounded against the fly of his jeans, wanting out. Maybe it hadn’t heard what she’d just said about sex—weapons and pain.
“You just said sex is a weapon for the Neethul, and I’m not into that. So, no offense, but—”
Suddenly, she was pressed against him, her eyes boring into his. A sizzling ripple of awareness went through him in all the places their bodies met. Craving more, he shifted so his erection nudged her hard abs.
“I am going to tell you a secret,” she murmured. “And if you tell anyone—”
“Yeah, yeah, slaughtered in the festival square, sold off as spare parts. You were remarkably clear on that.”
She smiled, and the bizarre thing was, he sensed that it was genuine. Not part of this…whatever it was she was doing. This female was unlike anything he’d come across in his dealings with the Neethul people.
“I like you,” she said as she settled the Meerie on a hitching post next to him. He wondered if her hip brushing his fly as she turned was an accident and hoped it wasn’t. “I will tell you my truth, and you will teach me about sex for pleasure.”
Oh, damn. He was an assassin on an urgent mission. But he was also an incubus, hardwired for one thing, one primary directive.
Sex.
Sex was the blood running through his veins. It was the air he breathed. It was life.
Heat flooded his body, burning his skin and turning the world beyond this female to featureless smoke. Need consumed him. Need to possess this female. His job could wait. Technically, he had four months to do it. He’d just wanted to get it off his plate so he could take a vacation.
Vacation could wait too.
In a quick, smooth motion, he hooked his calf around hers, swung her around, and slammed her against the stack of barrels.
“Tell me, then, my little Meerie lover. What is your secret?”
Her chin came up, and she somehow managed to look down her nose at him, even though he was taller by at least six inches. But the longer they stood there, his body holding hers captive, the air between them thickening with lust, the more her seductive, arrogant façade cracked.
“I don’t like pain.” Her voice trembled, but her gaze never wavered. Never stopped challenging him. She was prepared to fight him if he turned this unguarded moment against her. “I don’t like weapons. For once, I want to try sex without the blood. And the screams. They’re always mine,” she whispered.
Her words tugged at him, ripped right into his chest. He didn’t like it. Didn’t like how her vulnerability exposed his.
He didn’t have to care about her. He just had to give her what she wanted. The sex demon in him demanded that much.
His lips met hers in a fierce kiss that made him taste blood. Hers or his, he didn’t know. All he knew was that she tasted like smoky wine and feminine need.
“My tent is nearby.” She panted against his mouth. “No one would dare disturb us.”
Cool. He’d do her, pillow-talk her out of some intel, and then whack the Neethul he was looking for. “Sounds good, uh…what’s your name?”
“I am Gristlen,” she purred. “Gristlen the Unseen, Princess of the Clan Draghoul, House Arcane.”
His knees damn near gave out.
Fuck. Fuckity-fuck-fuck-fuck.
Fuck.
Gristlen was magnificent. He had to have her. He had to possess her in every way.
And then he’d have to kill her.
Chapter 1
A spinning sphere of color hurtled toward Tavin in a meteoric blur. Only his lightning-fast reflexes, a finely-honed self-preservation instinct, and years of brutal experience as an assassin saved him from becoming the victim of an errant beach ball.
He volleyed the inflatable sphere back to the group of kids playing in the sand under the watchful eyes of their parents, older siblings, and a dozen hellhounds.
Tavin kept a wary lookout for the bison-sized things, but they largely avoided him as they played in the ocean waves or lolled about in the sun like giant puppies.
Giant, man-eating puppies that could go from “aw, cute” to “oh, shit” in less time than it took for your life to flash before your eyes. These particular beasts lived on the Greek island belonging to Ares, the Horseman of the Apocalypse also known as War. As long as they considered you a friend, you probably wouldn’t die.
Probably.
So, Tavin obeyed the rules and didn’t reach for them, talk to them, or look them in the eyes. “Completely ignore them,” Cara, Ares’ wife had said.
“And if I don’t?” he’d asked.
She’d smiled and patted him on the shoulder as she passed him on the path to the mansion. “We’ll have a nice funeral for you. With whatever bits of you we can find.”
He’d laughed, assuming it was a joke. But he wasn’t going to test that assumption.
“What do you think of your first Underworld General staff party?”
Tavin glanced over at Lore, a fellow Seminus demon he’d known since long before he started working at the demon hospital a year ago.
“It’s better than most parties thrown by demons,” he said. “The punch has ice instead of eyeballs, no one is hanging from a hook, and I really appreciate that the streamers are made out of paper instead of intestines.”
Lore grunted. “Demons are fucked-up,” he said as if he weren’t half demon.
Tavin gestured toward Ares and Cara, who were building a sandcastle with their daughter, Aleka. “It was nice of them to donate the island for the party.”
Lore dipped his dark head in a nod. “Limos, Ares, and Thanatos have all been generous about giving us space to do things like this. Before they moved, we had a bash at Reseph and Jillian’s mountain place once too.”
Tavin didn’t know the full backstory of the Four Horsemen and how they were intertwined with the Seminus demons who ran Underworld General, but they were tight. Everyone joked about keeping the Seminus sons away from the Horsemen’s daughters, but as he watched them playing, he wondered how much of a joke it would be when the kids got older.
Somehow, Tavin didn’t think the Horsemen would want their post-pubescent Daddy’s girls hanging out with horny demon boys who needed frequent sex or they’d die.
Sems were fathers of daughters’ worst nightmare.
“Hey.” Lore jabbed him in the ribs with his elbow. “You’re being eye-fucked. Check your two o’clock.”
Tavin glanced over at the buffet table, where two of the hospital’s cafeteria workers were volunteering. Evi, a curvy brunette lion shifter in a scarlet bikini, gave him a sultry smile and a flirty wave. Next to her, Churla, a fangy, pointy-eared succubus who looked too much like a Neethul for comfort, flicked her forked tongue at him in a way that made it clear what she wanted to use it for.
He nodded in acknowledgment but didn’t offer any encouragement. He’d hooked up with Evi a couple of times, but he wasn’t in the mood right now. As for Churla? Yeah, no. Her platinum hair and pale, iridescent skin reminded him of someone he didn’t deserve to think about.
Tavin turned back to his friend. “It still freaks me out to see Tier-Five demons working at UG.”