"With me, nothing is as it seems. It's always much, much worse."
"No. I don't think you truly want to do these things to me, or to my people."
"Do what things? Make a bid for power? Capture a demon?" When he didn't answer, her tone grew cold.
"You think you can change me, don't you? Into someone who's good? Maybe rehabilitate me?"
"In my circumstances, I have to believe that. You can be made to see things differently. I can teach you-"
As she rose, the room appeared to rock from her fury. Above them, in the illusion of sky, a cascade of shooting stars blazed. "I beheaded the first male that tried to turn me toward good." At the cell doorway, she added, "I was twelve."
10
When Rydstrom caught Sabine's sultry scent, he briefly closed his eyes in pleasure, then cursed himself for his weakness.
What would she do to him tonight? Her attendants had left him unclothed and chained to the bed by his wrists and ankles, a single sheet covering his lower body.
For two days she hadn't returned. Hour after hour had crept by, the dungeon seeming to close in on him, the manacles continually cutting into his skin.
All rage demons knew tales of those among their kind who'd turned fully demonic, but never reverted. They lived like animals-a hellish idea for someone like Rydstrom. To forestall that rage, demons of his kind took release multiple times a day.
Sabine had denied him even that.
She'd asked him if he hated her. At the time, he hadn't, but the seed had been planted. It grew every day she left him in the bleak cell.
"You are angered by your treatment, and now you're sulking," she said airily as she entered and stood behind the bed. "But I plan to make it up to you."
More torment. More teasing. His growing hatred warred with need. He cursed his shaft when it rose in anticipation beneath the sheet.
Why in the hell had she remained away so long? He'd had no idea where she was or even if she would ever return.
"Not interested in what I have to offer?" She reached over the headboard. "Just as I warned, I've brought a stocked arsenal today, demon."
He felt cold metal against his skin and gazed down at her hands on his chest. She wore full-length gloves made of metal mesh that ended in silver-tipped claws, razor sharp and glinting.
Gauntlets? Unease built in him.
"I'm going to use all my unique talents to seduce you. Won't even look at your female?"
He'd have to crane his head around to see her. He refused to show her how curious he was.
Don't look . . . don't do anything she wants you to.
When she began to knead his muscles, he tensed, but she knew how to work those claws so she didn't pierce his skin.
"As I lay in the dark the other night, it occurred to me that just because you had denied yourself, I shouldn't have to."
Did she mean she'd taken another into her bed? Was that what she'd been doing all this time? His fangs grew in his mouth.
She leaned down to murmur at his ear, "So, I fantasized about you . . . while I pleasured myself."
He didn't have a second to bite back his rage-and relief-before she asked, "Do you want to see what I was imagining?"
Still leaning over him, she turned her hands up and put them side by side in front of his face. The air above them blurred and heated. An illusion began to play on the far wall, like a film on a movie screen.
He parted his lips at what she'd conjured. The scene showed her naked on all fours, with him behind her, clutching her hips as he took her hard from behind.
His lids grew heavy, his jaw slackening. He couldn't look away, instead gazing on for long moments as his shaft stiffened with each beat of his heart. The hatred I he felt toward her was being drowned out by wanting inside her body.
If I could just slake myself, relieve the pressure, then I could think . . .
To imagine claiming her was one thing, to witness it was another. When he saw his shaft buried into her sex, Rydstrom groaned, unable to hold it in. "You toy with things you don't understand. I will lose all control. I could kill you as easily as claim you."
She ignored him. "Would you like to see what I thought of when I climaxed?" The idea of her masturbating her pink bare flesh till she came on her own fingers.. .
Suddenly, the vision changed to show Sabine on her knees before him as he stood. He had his fist in her long
red hair, guiding her head as she sucked his shaft. He bucked into her mouth, clearly on the verge, his head thrown back. She'd imagined this?
She sauntered in front of him, in front of the illusion still playing. He lost his breath; time seemed to slow.
"Sabine?" She was clad in Sorceri dress, the same the ancients of her kind had favored ages ago. She wore an elaborate headdress in gold and silver that might easily have been the crown of a queen. Her hair was in wild plaits, spilling out all around it.
A mask of jet-black kohl made her amber eyes glow, and her lips were painted blood red. The metal of her top barely covered her br**sts. Below her short skirt, her hose were like fishnet but made with threads of gold, climbing to her mid thighs.
He'd always thought the traditional dress for the Sorceri females had the potential to be mind-numbingly erotic. He'd never seen it on the right woman.
Until now. Rydstrom hissed out a curse. Deny it all I want . .
The Lore held that they'd dressed like this because they were among the physically weakest of all the species. They had no claws, so they mimicked them. They were vulnerable to injury so they protected their heads and their torsos with metal. The masks disconcerted their stronger opponents.
If she'd been nigh irresistible to him before ...
She was now his fantasy made flesh-standing framed by an illusion showing his legs nearly buckling as she Sucked him so deep.
Mine. She turned in a leisurely circle so he could see her from the back. As he beheld her pert ass in that skirt, he thought, I'm undone.
"I've decided we should get to know one another," she purred, facing him again. "Perhaps you've been reluctant to wed me because you haven't seen what a winning personality I have." She let the illusion behind
her fade.
"Winning personality," he repeated dumbly. Now she wanted to talk, when he was doing his damnedest not to rock his aching shaft against the cool sheet.
"I'm curious, demon. What do you enjoy sexually?" He'd been trying to figure that out for most of his life. He knew he enjoyed her dressed like this. It made him fantasize about spending hours divesting her of wicked
garments.
The puzzle of unfastening each complicated piece ... the time it would take, the anticipation. The knotted leather laces on her metal top alone...