ILSA

Ray had drawn blood. Her teeth were sharper than I realized, and when she came, she clamped onto my shoulder, punctured my skin, and created a small stream of blood that flooded her mouth. Her lips stayed over my skin, her tongue dancing across the wound. I trusted her to know what she was doing. Obviously, the bonding thing only worked one way, otherwise, she wouldn’t still be near the wound she’d created.

Minutes ticked by.

Ray gripped me, painfully hard, with her breathing heavy and ragged. Her eyes were closed and her pupils twitched, darting back and forth underneath her eyelids as though she was dreaming.

When she jerked away from my shoulder, and her eyes shot open, they were yellow, and I had withdrawn my fingers from her. Her pussy had tightened around my fingers when she came, and it was so fucking hot. She was beautiful in her ecstasy, and I reveled in the twitches of her body and moans against my skin as she came down.

But something was wrong, her pupils still flickered back and forth. She wasn’t focusing on anything—it was like I wasn’t even there.

She was somewhere else.

Was this normal?

Did this happen last time?

Suddenly, I couldn’t remember.

What’s normal for a demon anyway?

“Ray—”

“Collateral damage,” she whispered, blinking a few times. When her eyes returned to the shades of gold of her human eyes, she was crying, and it shook me.

Such human emotion from a demon. It took me a moment to respond.

“Ray, did I hurt you? Are you okay?”

She shook her head rapidly, but instead of wiping her face, she wrapped her arms around me, crushing me against her and burying her face into my shoulder again.

When she sobbed, I thought my heart was going to break.

“What’s wrong? Did I do something wrong? Please talk to me.”

This wasn’t a reaction I’d had before after giving a woman an orgasm, and I didn’t understand what was happening. Was it different for demons? Did I do something to hurt or upset her?

“Collateral damage,” she whispered again. “I understand now.”

“What are you talking about?”

“That dismembered arm wasn’t the arm of an adult.”

Those were my thoughts.

My thoughts.

My back stiffened under her touch, and when I pulled away, she loosened her grip slightly, but not entirely, as if she was afraid I would leave. It took a lot of strength not to. I didn’t want to think about what she had said, let alone talk about it. Looking down at her and swallowing heavily, I wiped her tears away with my thumb.

“How did you know about that?” I muttered.

“I saw it.”

“I don’t understand.”

“When I tasted your blood, I saw it. Snippets of a memory like it was my own.”

“Of all the memories you could see…” I squeezed my eyes shut, turning away from her.

“We don’t choose. If they’re strong or prominent memories, they stand out. But always negative ones. Fear, sadness, regret.” She released a shuddering sigh. “Back home, it helps when I’m figuring out how to…”

“Torture someone?”

She bit her lip. “Yeah.”

Demon.

The word still played in my mind, but looking at her now, I saw her differently. I saw a being trying her best to fit into a world where she didn’t belong, trying to find the balance between the rules of the world and her personal boundaries.

It sounded like someone else I knew.

Tags: Stefanie Dawn Romance
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