A Demon's Gifts: Vice College For Young Demons: Year Two Read online

  I smiled. “You feel like crackling flames,” I admitted, feeling him along the bond, “but also…” I paused trying to describe it. “There’s something else… Something calm and watchful about it… I can’t think when you’re doing that!”

  He had freed one of my feet from my shoe and was stroking his thumbs along the arch and up to my ankle.

  “Tough, Sweetness, because I know exactly how drained you are right now.” He freed the other foot with the same gentle care, soothing away the ache from a night of wearing heels with expert hands. “If I focus hard enough on that bond I can tell exactly how tired you are.”

  “None of the others do that…” That I knew of, anyway. I’d only done it once before to check on Daron when he was unconscious.

  “Because the others think your privacy is more important than your health,” he admitted. “I’m not that principled.” He paused, massaging the arch of my foot in just the right way to make me moan. “I love feeling how much you ache for me.”

  “You can’t spend forever watching me down the bond.”

  He smirked. “We shall see.”

  “I mean it, Blaze. Don’t use it to spy on me.”

  “I will try to restrain myself. But you will use it to tell me if you’re ever in trouble. Promise me.”

  I nodded, and he smiled in satisfaction.

  His fingers quested further north, and he rolled me over gently, undoing the clasps at the back of the skirt and the four buttons on the top. The pieces fell away from me and he picked them up, hanging them neatly over the chair. “You look good in that dress. It would be a shame to ruin it.” He smiled, stalking towards me like a predator as I watched him over my shoulder.

  He reached over to my ass and grabbed the fleshy globes, kneading and massaging them between his large hands and igniting me just with his touch. When he tugged me back towards him with his hands on my hips, pulling me onto my hands and knees I shivered in anticipation. He pressed lightly on the vibrator against my pussy, forcing the vibrations straight to my clit. I jerked away from the intensity of the feeling but a light slap against my rear reminded me of Blaze’s favourite rule.

  “You don’t move.” His voice had dropped to that husky, commanding tone I loved so much. “If you make me remind you every time, I’m going to take you to my apartment and spank you.”

  I squirmed at the thought and he chuckled darkly, reaching underneath me and trailing his fingertips up my ribs, teasing me with touches that were never quite where I needed them most but still ramped up my desire regardless. My breasts throbbed, every cell in me wanting him to go higher, to touch them.

  Then he stopped all together and I whimpered in disappointment.

  “Patience,” he scolded, and the vibrator in my panties started to pulse harder and harder against the wetness of my core.

  He left me there like that as he slowly removed each item of his formal clothing, laying them over the chair one by one in a show that had me drooling and impatient all at once. I tried to grind against the vibe for release, but the damned thing was so smooth that it just slipped and slid away from where I need it most.

  Blaze smirked, watching me in the mirror as I was watching each piece of corded muscle being unveiled. When he shrugged his shirt from his shoulders, I traced each line of muscle with my eyes, wishing it was with my tongue instead. He was the most muscular of all my mates, but also the most scarred, every inch of him made to fight and protect. When he removed his trousers and boxers in one motion, I smiled in anticipation.

  Fully nude, he turned back to me, turning me around and climbing up onto the bed behind me.

  “Sweetness, I don’t know if I have it in me to be as gentle as I want to be,” he admitted, trailing a line of fiery kisses, licks and nibbles down my spine. “If I get too rough, stop me however you have to.”

  I shook my head. “I know you’d never hurt me... I like what you do to me…” More than that, I craved it. I knew he held back every time we were together and something primal within me always wanted to demand he take things further.

  The look Blaze gave me at my admission nearly incinerated me.

  He slid a finger down the edge of my panties, testing my wetness before sliding one thick digit inside of me. He rubbed that perfect spot within me whilst the vibrator nudged against my clit with each thrust. He added a second finger, scissoring them inside me before returning to stroke that same spot. I groaned, trying my hardest not to move, but unable to prevent myself. He worked me to one long and lazy orgasm, drawing out my pleasure using only his fingers and the vibrator before he finally let me tip over the edge. I hadn’t even come down from the climax fully before he got impatient with the thong and tore it down my legs, pressing his hot length into me in its place.

  He never entered me slowly, and tonight was no exception. Blaze thrust forward at the same time he yanked hard on my hips, fusing us together in a rush of feeling that made me clench around him. He didn’t stay in place to allow me to adjust like any of the others might have. The instant he was sheathed to the hilt, he began slamming into my greedy sex like a jackhammer, each animal thrust setting off tiny explosions of pain-laced pleasure that made me tighten in response. His hands gripped my hips, pulling me against him at the perfect angle to hit the spot he’d tormented earlier, and my world melted away till there was nothing except the burning feeling of his hot skin against mine.

  My whole body spasmed and he released my hip to lay an open-handed slap to my ass. It made a loud crack, but the tiny sting only seemed to add to my pleasure. I clenched involuntarily around him as the sting travelled straight to my clit and he groaned.

  “God, Sweetness, you’re so damned wet, so damned perfect.” He thrust in counterpoint to his words, each motion making me shudder with pleasure. “Come for me.”

  He curled his body around mine, his hand stroking across my shoulder and coming around to collar my throat. The light pressure against my neck and the total dominance of the move sparked that inevitable crescendo, dragging a roar of completion from him as I took him with me over the edge.

  Chapter 2

  It wasn’t till late into the night that I woke from the slightest jostling of the mattress. I held the covers to my chest and watched through half-lidded eyes as Blaze tiptoed over to his clothes and started pulling on boxers. He was creeping out, I realised, knowing that the head of security couldn’t be seen leaving my room in the morning even as I hated it.

  “Go back to sleep, Sweetness,” he ordered in a low whisper. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  He was still shirtless, and I couldn’t help but stare at the scars covering his exposed back. He hooked his arms through the sleeves of his shirt, about to conceal them from my sleepy, curious gaze.

  I decided to risk his punishment and rose from the warm bed, approaching him on bare feet with the sheet wrapped around me for warmth.

  He said nothing as I reached him and fisted the fabric of his shirt, preventing him from covering the narrative of his body. My eyes caught on the large, puckered, starburst-shaped scar on his right shoulder and I traced it softly with one finger. My Wrath mate was covered in scars, but this one had always fascinated me the most. It had a twin on his lower abdomen, and both reappeared on his back.

  “It was a bullet wound from a sniper.” His tone was dismissive, but the mating bond pulsed with the ache of an old emotional bruise. “I had a few months straight out of college where I joined the army, fighting against the fate my grandmother had seen for me. The head of my house sent me and a bunch of other green recruits straight to the front lines against an uprising in the states, and the commanding officer – a Pride who didn’t give a shit if we lived or died – sent all of us straight against the enemy as a diversion.” He removed my hand and kissed my fingers one by one, turning away to stare out of the window as he remembered.

  I turned his face back to me so we were staring into each other’s eyes. “What happened?”

  “It wasn’t prett
y. We were being picked off by this sniper left, right and centre, and the only way any of my unit would survive would be if someone drew his fire. I knew I wasn’t fated to die that day, so I did it.” He shrugged half-heartedly. “They gave me medals, called me a hero and offered me a promotion, but I quit, because when those bullets hit me, the only fear in my heart was that my grandmother was wrong, and I’d lost the chance to ever meet my mate.”

  “You were very brave,” I whispered, snuggling against the warmth of him.

  His eyes took on a faraway look. “The medals did help me get into Vice as security, and I’m required to wear them at formal occasions… but otherwise they’re just cheap bits of metal to me. Most of the men I took the bullets to protect are dead now anyway, the asshole CO got promoted. None of it really mattered, in the end.”

  I shook my head, bent, and kissed both scars before I gently buttoned up the shirt over them. “It matters to me, because it matters to you.”

  He kissed the top of my head. “I… I care, deeply about you.”

  I pulled away and shook my head. “That was too close to the words,” I scolded. “I know how you feel about me, it’s in the way you touch me and the way you care for me. Please, never ever say those words.”

  He smiled sadly as he pulled his jacket over his shirt and stuffed the cummerbund, tie and cufflinks in the pocket. “I will try, for you…”

  I rolled my eyes and waved goodbye as he silently opened the window and used a shield of PK to hover himself down to the ground. I waited there until his red hair had disappeared into the darkness, my fingers absently caressing the blue roses that lined my windowsill before I headed back to bed.

  I didn’t sleep as well without him to keep me warm. I kept the light on, keeping in mind what Blaze had said about Enzo’s ability to travel through darkness.

  But despite that, I still could’ve sworn I heard the words ‘pretty darling’ in my dreams.

  At first, all my mates were on high alert. I was escorted from place to place by all of them with Rina, Nelly and Lulu constantly turning up to check on me. Blaze was the one who informed me a day after mating me that the contract for my death had been erased from the site, but not by anyone at Vice. In my gut, I knew it was Enzo, and the knowledge didn’t reassure me at all.

  Being Maddox’s assistant for two months kept me distracted, if nothing else, and eventually even Blaze started to relax slightly. But that was only because I never told him, or anyone else, about the gifts which had started arriving on my pillow in the middle of the night.

  It started with tiny innocuous things. A pair of black studs for my ears that I assumed could have come from Daron, but that he never remarked upon. Then a small bunch of tiny wild flowers that might have come from Bane except, when I mentioned it, he raised an eyebrow and told me it must have been someone else. Brand new exercise books and textbooks on all the subjects I was taking for second year were delivered to the door, each one containing the words ‘For my Pretty Darling’ handwritten on the inside of the cover in perfect calligraphy. That was when I knew for certain it was him. From then on it only escalated. One night I woke up to find myself wearing a choker with hanging pearls and a black diamond the size of a pound coin in the centre.

  I quickly resolved not to sleep alone ever again after that.

  Not that it stopped him leaving gifts on my pillow, but it made me feel better that I wasn’t in the room when he did it.

  My deception fell apart on the first day back at college. Though the twenty-first fell on a Saturday that year we were still required to attend one mandatory hour-long session so that Maddox could hand out timetables, remind us of the rules and check that none of us had escaped during work placement. When I took out my new book in Maddox’s induction session to copy down the topics for his second-year foundation studies module, Daron noticed. He didn’t say anything all day, making me hope I’d gotten away with it, but when I returned to my room that night, all six of my mates, including Bane, were sitting around the room, looking tense and angry. Blaze had his back to me and not being able to read him ramped up my anxiety.

  “When were you going to tell us that an assassin has been leaving you gifts?” Aeron demanded, hooking his finger around the chain of the day’s gift – a double-stranded, black, pearl necklace – and lifting it from my pillow in accusation.

  I sighed, dropping my bag and sliding down against the wood of the door. “I didn’t want you to get hurt,” I mumbled, hugging my knees and feeling like a naughty child under the weight of their gazes. “I don’t sleep here anymore.”

  “You mean he leaves them for you whilst you’re sleeping?” Daron asked, “Or have you been communicating with him?”

  I stared at him in shock. “I would have told you if I was talking to him!” I protested, staring at Blaze’s back, willing him to just say something. “At first it was petty things; flowers, tiny earrings, things that could have been from any of you! I just woke up and they were there.”

  “And the books?” Bane asked, not looking at me at all.

  “Delivered whilst I was in,” I admitted. “I rang up the company to try and return them, and they said personalised orders were non-refundable.” I sighed, staring guiltily at the floor. “That’s when I knew it was him, and that’s when I stopped sleeping alone.”

  “And you didn’t think to tell any of us?” Jin just sounded disappointed. “We would have helped, Pet.”

  “I was scared,” I whispered, meeting his sad eyes. “I thought… After how he…” I felt a tear slip down my cheek. “I thought he might finish what he started when he pinned you in place and made me mate him.”

  I got up and went to my wardrobe, drawing out the box in which I had started shoving his outrageous gifts and tipping it out on the covers. “Every time I come back here there’s something new and it doesn’t matter if the door is locked, if the lights are on, or the windows covered with PK shields. I’ve tried everything.”

  I reached out to touch Blaze, but he shrugged my hand away. “You didn’t trust us to protect you?” He said, voice unreadable.

  “I didn’t want you to get hurt.”

  “Six of us against one of him, Sunshine.” Kain sounded pissed. “You seriously thought we hadn’t worked a way around his tactics?”

  “But at what cost?” I asked. “I can’t lose any of you.”

  “I thought we agreed to take things as a team and vote on issues that affect all of us?” Daron ventured into the silence.

  “I’m not going to apologise,” I insisted.

  “Then neither am I,” Blaze grunted. “I agreed to give you privacy down the bond because that’s what you wanted. That changes today.”

  “Blaze,” Daron cut him off sharply. “I thought we agreed punishment was counterproductive?”

  “She broke her promise,” Blaze argued.

  “We agreed,” Daron insisted.

  Blaze growled in frustration and turned on his heel, stalking towards the door.

  “Hello Pretty Darling,” the shadows whispered, making me shudder. “Am I interrupting?”

  The rest of the room seemed to turn grey around me. I rubbed my eyes, trying to get used to the strange, blurry quality that seemed to cover my vision whilst grey figures that vaguely resembled my men, but which were laying at awkward positions, started to jump around the room noiselessly.

  “Interesting place, the realm of shadows, isn’t it?” Enzo’s voice echoed from behind me, the only noise in this completely silent place. “What it lacks in warmth, sound and detail, it makes up for in usefulness.” His fingers slid up and down my neck and, before I could blink, the pearl necklace that had been on my pillow was sliding against my skin. “Don’t you like my gifts, Pretty Darling? I knew when I first felt your skin that the only things to touch it should be silk and gems.”

  I shuddered, took a deep breath, and whirled to face him. “Why are you here?” I demanded. “Why are you leaving me stuff like this?”

  “Is a dem
on not allowed to spoil his mate?” Enzo replied, a soft smile tugging at his lips. “Come, it’s the weekend, and I’ve decided that it’s my turn to spend time with you.” he paused, as if expecting an answer. “See how I’m sharing with the others and everything?”

  “They’ll worry if I just disappear,” I informed him.

  “Then we’ll tell them you’re with me.” He smiled, going into his jacket, another frock coat, and pulling out a black business card.

  I took it and traced the iridescent grey ink on the card. “Enzo Orfo, Mess Fixer. Don’t call me, I’ll call you.”

  He gestured for me to flip it over, and I saw more words on the back written in more iridescent ink. “She’s with me whilst you all cool off.” I rolled my eyes. “That won’t go down well.”

  “Drop it.”