Keenan’s brow hiked up slightly. He hadn’t considered that. “Maybe. We’ll ask him that very question when we get ahold of him. It won’t be long until we do.”
“So I shouldn’t kill him with the blade if I come across him?”
“If it seems like you have no choice but to kill him to survive a confrontation with him, then don’t hesitate. There will be another way to save you. We just have to find it.”
“And we will.”
Keenan curved his hand around the side of her neck. She was fucking amazing. Other people might have wallowed, given up hope of being healed, and drowned in self-pity. Not Khloé. She remained sturdy and strong, refusing to give in to whatever worries she might have. His demon loved that spine of steel she had.
Needing to be closer to her, Keenan gripped her by the waist, lifted her, and then sat her on his lap so that she straddled him. “That’s better.” Locking his arms tight around her, he took her mouth, needing and relishing the taste of her, loving how she melted into him.
When he finally pulled back, he rested his forehead against hers. “Missed you today.”
“Missed you right back. Which kind of annoyed me. It was very distracting.”
“I know what you mean. But you’ve been distracting me for years, so I’m used to it.”
She toyed with the collar of his tee. “Devon said I wear your scent now.”
A smile quirked his mouth. “Tanner said I wear yours.” If two demons were intimate on more than one level, their skin often became embedded with each other’s scent. “Does it bother you?”
“No. You?”
“Not at all. I like it.” He took her mouth again, feasting and consuming her. Hunger crawled through him, thick and hot and carnal. He embraced it, desperate to forget for just a short time that she was getting closer to death every single day; desperate to drown out the clawing fear that rode him day and night.
He snaked his hand beneath her tank top and slid it up her back, wanting—no, needing—the skin-to-skin contact. More, he needed to be inside her; needed to lose himself in her; needed the glorious oblivion that only Khloé had ever been able to give him.
She tore her mouth free and raked her fingers through his hair. “I’m curious. Do you have anything against the idea of bending me over the kitchen island while you shove your delightfully large schlong in me?”
He felt one side of his mouth tip up. “My what?”
*
As a deep male voice made an announcement over the racing stadium’s intercom, Khloé smiled. “Teague’s horse is up next,” she said without turning away from the wall of glass that overlooked the dirt track.
Beams of bright light slashed through the air and illuminated both the track and artificial grass, courtesy of the rows of high-powered floodlights. Spectators were everywhere—the tiered grandstand, the indoor cafeteria, the outdoor picnic area, and some even stood near the white fence that bordered the track.
Khloé took another bite of her hotdog, despite the fact that her stomach kept doing annoying little flips. She loved watching Teague’s stallion race. It was, without a doubt, the fastest of its kind, which was why it was a favorite among the gambling addicts. She wasn’t really nervous on its behalf—she never doubted that it would win—but her stomach still often went all jittery with anticipation.
Hellhorse racing was bloody, gory, and intense as hell. Which was why she and her demon loved to observe it.
Normal horses might be prey animals, but hellhorses sure weren’t. There was nothing placid or timid about them. They were ferocious, aggressive, mercurial creatures with notoriously bad tempers.
Keenan curled his arms around Khloé from behind and locked her to him. “I’ll admit, this VIP box is way cooler than the one at the hellhound stadium,” he said.
Khloé smiled. “Ain’t it, though?”
Like the VIP boxes at the hellhound racing stadiums, it had chic leather seating, multiple TVs, and a personal waiter who would enter whenever summoned. But it had a few extra luxuries, such as the cool mini bar, complimentary champagne, the small buffet of finger-foods, and the sliding glass door that led to a private balcony.
Sidling up to them, Devon tipped back her champagne flute and sipped at her drink. “As much as I love watching hellhorses race, I’ll never quite understand why they put themselves through this. I mean, some of those obstacles are horrendous.”
The hellcat wasn’t wrong. It wasn’t so much the eight-foot tall hedges and stone walls—it was the ditches that were placed to either side of them. Said ditches contained some horrible shit—simmering lava, short flaming wooden spears, clumps of hyped-up poisonous snakes, and red-hot iron spikes to name but a few.
“The person who comes up with ideas for the hurdles has to be a sadist,” said Harper, comfortably perched on a leather seat with Asher on her lap. “You’d better hope said sadist doesn’t turn his attention to hellhound racing, Tanner. You guys already have it hard with the hot oily pits and bubbling puddles of boiling water.”