Touched by Fire (Demons of New Chicago #1) - Kel Carpenter Page 0,67
gripped her thighs roughly, pulling her against me.
She made a soft noise that enticed me, and I broke our kiss.
My lips trailed her jaw and down the slender column of her throat. I pressed a soft kiss there and my eyes slanted open. Tatiana was absorbed in our show. One slave at her feet had moved between her legs, eating her out. The other had turned to fucking that one from behind.
The muscles of his backside went taut as he thrust into the other man.
As far as situations to land myself in, a demon orgy was pretty high on the list of places I didn’t want to be. Not much could make it worse.
Movement behind Tatiana made me frown. I pulled back from Nathalie just a fraction as a sense of knowing came over me. My blood recognized him a second before I did.
Ronan stepped out of the crowd.
24
Black fire reflected in his gaze.
My body froze. Nathalie instantly stopped what she was doing, as if sensing the change in me.
The music in the Seventh Circle still boomed. People danced. People drank. Tatiana was still writhing as she was being pleasured, and the men fucking were still chasing release. I almost wondered if I was the only one that could see him and the smoke drifting in wisps from his suit . . . if I was the only one that could feel his power growing, amassing, the volatile churning beneath his flesh form.
Then Lucifer spoke.
“Harvester.” For once, there was none of the pleasantness. None of the mania. He was ice, but fire was upon him, bearing down with its smoldering heat.
Ronan stopped behind the couch Tatiana was on.
He let out a dark chuckle. My skin pebbled.
“Lucifer,” he said. “I should have known. Still pining for Aeshma? It’s been a few thousand years, hasn’t it?”
Nathalie pulled away, and I turned sideways to eye the demon next to me. His lips were pulled back in the makings of a snarl. Hatred burned in his cold eyes. His magic snapped in the air like a whip. Desire burned in me that was not my own.
And yet it was.
“She was my atma,” Lucifer said softly. “Mine.”
Ronan smiled cruelly, and that wickedness pulled at the threads of my careful composure. Adrenaline was flooding my system.
There was something in what Lucifer said that made me pause, though.
Was.
Not is.
“I see you’ve figured it out,” Ronan said softly. “So why is my atma sitting beside you?”
Lucifer stilled, then his gaze slid sideways. First to Nathalie, then to me.
For the first time, true surprise that he couldn’t mask filled his features.
“That’s not possible,” he whispered. The words were meant for Ronan, but his eyes were on me. “Piper is mine now, and I’m not letting you corrupt her like you did Aeshma.”
If it were possible for fireworks to explode in my head and temporarily blind me, it would have happened then.
Lucifer knew. He knew Aeshma was gone.
Dead.
But he kept me under the guise of finding her.
What’s more, he was claiming Ronan would corrupt me. The irony wasn’t lost on me.
Lucifer. The Lord of the Underworld. The Morningstar. The Devil.
He was worried about Ronan corrupting me.
There was history there. Did I dare hope it was enough so it would come to blows?
Yes. Yes, I did.
Lucifer’s arm curled around my shoulders, pulling me in.
Nathalie tightened her hold on me. Her hands slipped from my hair to my shoulders.
“She carries traces of Aeshma, but she is not Aeshma. You’re confused, Brother.”
Brother? Wait a second. He was—
My head tilted to the side as dark power began building within him. I sensed it from the little bit of blood that mingled between us. He was prepared to end everything. The club. The city of New Chicago. Certainly Lucifer, if it meant getting to me. It was enough to distract me from learning both of the alphaholes being related.
Sixteen-year-old Piper would have thrown herself at him like the lovesick, romantic fool she was. I tried dating vampires and getting them to change me. I went looking for shifters on full moons. I wanted eternity and power because I viewed those things as safety.
But power came at terrible costs.
Last, I went to the witches for it, and they gave it to me.
That’s why I was here now. That decision was the fucking gift that kept on giving.
“One never confuses the scent of their atma. We know it in our blood. Our soul. Her magic sings to me. I will not give her up.”