lust, the hunger, shoved my humanity aside.
His ethereal touch, a quiver of electric power in the rush of heat, filtered through my flesh and dove inside. Human worries bobbed to the surface of my thoughts, but Akil’s hands speared into my hair and pulled me so close I forgot it all. Lust ran through me like wildfire. I sunk my hands over his behind and yanked him hard against me, swallowing his groan inside our raging kiss. Pleasure spiraled higher, like a hawk caught in the updraft. I rode the madness, snarling when he pulled back, demanding more when he tore open my robe and brushed his thumbs over my nipples. When his mouth scalded those peaks, I arched back, hissing. Energies danced in the air between us. Need throbbed. Demon wants filled my head. I fumbled at his zipper, but it snagged, and with a frustrated groan, I diverted my hands to the hard ridge of his arousal, grinning as a powerful shudder tumbled through him. He growled out my name and knocked my hand aside, hissing into my cheek, “not yet.” The distinct touch of his ethereal power swirled around us, circling like a storm. At its eye, Akil pushed inside.
The dark buried within me twitched, awakening. Lust ravaged my thoughts and owned my control. Akil became all I’d ever know, all I ever wanted to know. His warm spiciness sizzled on my tongue. The devastating heat of him crawled over me, and inside, he smothered the dark with liquid fire. I lost all sense of the moment. Time slowed or hastened. I didn’t know which and didn’t care.
“Reach into me…” His words sailed through the storm and found me in the madness. I responded like a newborn flame, eager and hungry, and drove my element into him, reaching for the light. Power sizzled between us, shivering across my fevered skin, igniting beneath the deft play of his fingers and the tease of his lips. Freefalling, I reached for him, needing him close, so close. I wanted to crawl inside him. My body ached with desire, my mind flooded with lust, and inside, the parasite that was Damien snarled. He lashed out, a slippery tendril of darkness striking viper-fast, but Akil’s burning light slipped around it and squeezed. The sound of my own screams distantly echoed. Akil’s ragged breaths sawed against my cheek. His body rocked against mine in a primal rhythm, but we weren’t joined, not sexually. This wasn’t physical but gloriously dreamlike and entirely demon. He whispered dark words, foreign words that sounded devilish on his lips. His incorporeal touch wove through me, around me, needling the pulsing, hideous dark, and plucking its claws from my soul, finally freeing me.
I clung to him, both with my mind and body. I held him so damn tight my muscles burned. His fire inside me swirled and danced. It devoured the dark, destroying every part of my hideous owner. Akil fell against me, trapping my body back against the wall, and words weighted with power tumbled over and over, coming hard and fast, burying me while at the same time lifting me up. I mirrored the words, hardly realizing I was speaking. We spoke as one—matched in breaths, in tone—and my power flowed into him. I heard the rapid beat of his heart, felt him trembling, and listened to the strain in his voice. When the dark finally released, a jolt of pain fired through me. Akil pinned me still and smothered my scream with his mouth, kissing me with consuming passion. The dark dissipated, fizzling away to nothing, replaced by dazzling shards of heat, light, lust, and something brighter, something carnal, basic, primal: Akil. His raw, unrefined wildness simmered like a potent drug. I forgot myself, forgot my brother, the demon threat, Stefan, Dawn… I forgot it all. And for a few wonderful timeless moments, I was a thing of pure fire and exquisitely demon.
Cool, slippery ice hovered at the edges of the inferno. Akil must have felt it too because he froze. I fixed my gaze on his. A corona of fire burned fiercely in his eyes. The reflection of my own gaze blazed. A familiar, comforting sensation warmed me through, like coming home to a blazing fire in the hearth. He moistened his lips and bowed his head. Both of us breathed hard and trembled with residual power.
“If you kill me, Prince of Wrath, Muse will never be free.”
I frowned at his unexpected words, their meaning