Immortals After Dark 07 - Kiss of a Demon King

changed during sex with a mate, his features becoming sharper, his skin deepening in color, his upper and lower fangs growing.
    What would it be like to have Rydstrom turn fully demonic, growling and thrusting over her?
    To have this powerful body working hers to orgasm? She drank deeply of her wine.
    Sabine hadn't been lying about wanting his pants to remain on for effect-naturally, she planned to take his zipper with her teeth-but that didn't mean she didn't want to see him, or, rather .. . it.
    She set her goblet on the bedstand, then slowly unzipped his pants. What was revealed made her bite her bottom lip.
    A pattern of scars ran along the length of his thick shaft. Though he wasn't now, he'd once been pierced.
    Sabine had heard rumors of archaic male rites of passage among many of the Demonarchies, but she'd thought the rage demons had done away with them
    eons ago.
    Maybe Rydstrom had decreed it so-he had been in
    the position to, after all.
    So the demon wore a permanent armband over his bicep, and he'd been tattooed and pierced. It seemed that Rydstrom Woede was the type of male whose outward appearance indicated nothing about what might be hidden under his clothes.
    As she carefully zipped his pants back up, Sabine grinned. What a surprise.
    6
    R
    ydstrom woke . . . consciousness slow to come. In that dim twilight, he vaguely comprehended that he was lying on a bed.
    "You're waking, after a mere half hour," Sabine said to him. "You're a strong one, demon."
    Rage coursed through him with his dawning comprehension. She drugged me. He couldn't lift his limbs or pry open his eyelids. Though he scented her nearness, her voice seemed to come from miles away.
    I'm not wearing a shirt? What the hell-
    "It might be a few moments before we can resume physically, so I thought we'd talk about your meeting with Groot's emissary."
    What did she know? He cast his mind back, but memories proved elusive.
    "What do I know?" she asked, reading his mind, incensing him.
    "I know why you were rushing off to New Orleans
    this evening, and why you were so intent that I had to wreck your pretty car just to get your attention."
    He was supposed to meet his brother tonight. Cadeon would be wondering where he was.
    When Ryd-strom felt her join him on the bed, he slitted open his stinging eyes, but couldn't make out more than a vague
    shape.
    In his ear, she whispered, "I know that Groot has forged a sword that you believe will destroy Omort."
    He jerked from her, then bellowed at the sound and feel of chains. "You've . . . chained me?"
    The bitch had bound him to the bed with those manacles around his ankles and wrists.
    J will kill her so slowly.

    She ignored his question. "In payment for the sword, Groot has demanded the Vessel -a female who will beget a future warrior of either ultimate evil or ultimate good." Depending upon the father's inclination. "But wherever will you find one?"
    He felt her probing his mind once more, but he had his defenses in place. "After all, demon, Vessels are born only every five hundred years."
    And yet Cadeon already has one. Unfortunately, Cade-on's fated female-the one he'd spent over a year pining for- was the Vessel. A woman named Holly Ashwin was the payment Groot wanted.
    Once Rydstrom's vision cleared, he focused on Sabine as she sat on the side of the bed, grinning at him over the rim of a wine goblet. He was relieved that she'd covered her chest.
    Then he frowned. Her top was white and so small and tight that he could see the bottoms of her breasts. Hadn't he ripped that one from her? Losing my mind . . .
    "What I don't know is if you gave your tosser brother enough information to send him on this fruitless quest."
    Groot had established parameters to make the trade, a system of checkpoints, with each supplying additional details about how to find his hidden lair. In their phone call, Rydstrom had given Cadeon enough information to make it to the first checkpoint and continue on the mission.
    "Not fruitless," he said, but with Rydstrom missing and unable to send word, was it even possible that Cadeon would do what was right?
    "Even if your brother somehow managed to find the Vessel and locate Groot's secret fortress, the sword just won't work. The Sorceri worship metal, and Groot the Metallurgist forges and enchants it. That makes him very powerful. But not enough to give death to the deathless."
    As Rydstrom began to regain his strength, he struggled against his bonds.
    "You can't break