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  “Well, I’m unpushing. Tell her it’s off. I don’t care what I said before. I don’t want you to go.”

  “I already told you, it’s too late.” I held up my forearm. “You see this? I am hers.”

  “The fuck you are.” Cleo rushed me and pulled me into her arms. “You’re mine.”

  I wanted to resist her. The way she’d tortured me, her constant taunting and flip-flopping, part of me hated her so much that when she wrapped me up in her scent and kissed me with everything she had, I wanted to push her away, but I couldn’t.

  Tears pricked my eyes as I kissed her back, and I felt even more that I should go with Paeno. I couldn’t stand it if this kiss ended badly. I couldn’t handle another instance of Cleo’s rejection. She kissed me deeper, sliding her tongue into my mouth, and everything I missed about her came flooding back. Those few short months we’d been together had been packed with a lifetime of emotion, years of intimacy that our bickering and cold shoulders couldn’t just erase. I didn’t feel this way about Paeno, and I knew I never would. I would never love her the way I loved Cleo. Without a blood bond, I would never ache to be with her or yearn to have her inside me the way I did with Cleo now.

  She read my need and guided me back toward the bed, her kisses traveling down my neck. Her thigh came between my legs, crushing the seam of my jeans against my clit. I must have moaned.

  “I’m sorry,” she purred against my skin. “Please, please. Don’t go.”

  “Cleo—” She silenced me again with her lips on my mouth, with a kiss so tender and so sweet I lost all ability to think. Her mouth moved to my cheek, then down to my neck again. When her tongue crept out and licked my throat, I knew I was in trouble. Of course she would remember my sweet spot. Had she been a human, I would have encouraged her, but things were different now. Had I been in the right frame of mind, I would have stopped her. But like the desperate little bunny pet I used to be, I ground myself against Cleo’s legs and made those pathetic, soft noises I used to make when I wanted her to take things further.

  A moment too late, I remembered that I wasn’t dealing with Cleo my sorority sister anymore. I was dealing with Cleo the demon who lived and fucked for blood. Her feral growl echoed through my ears.

  The instant her fangs sank into my skin, I cried out, orgasming in a powerful burst that surely soaked my underwear. I reveled in the sensation for a few seconds, feeling the peaks of ecstasy as she took me. A few short seconds where Cleo and I became everything I had always wanted us to be, demon and human together.

  And then everything went black.

  Cleo

  The second I felt Benny go slack, I pulled back from her. I stared at her in horror. Her eyes had rolled back in her head and a small amount of blood trickled from the punctures I’d made in her neck. Quickly, I sealed them, then I scooped her up and laid her on the floor. That’s when she started seizing. She shook violently on the carpet, spit frothing out of her mouth.

  “Fuck. Fuck. Benny.” I tapped her cheek, but nothing happened. Before I could do anything else, Camila appeared. I looked up at her helplessly as she looked down at Benny. Camila dropped to her knees beside us.

  She lifted Benny’s head. “Shit. Benny. Benny! Wake up! Did you bite her?” she asked me.

  Oh, fuck. “Yeah.”

  “Shit,” Camila growled. She held Benny’s head still and leaned close to her ear. “I release you, Benita Tarver. Listen to me, Benny. I release you.”

  As soon as Camila completed the vow, Benny stopped flopping around, but she didn’t come to. She was turning blue.

  “What happened? Why isn’t she waking up?”

  “Feed her,” Camila said.

  “Wha-what?”

  “Open your fucking wrist and feed her.”

  “Jesus! Okay!” I unsheathed my fangs and tore a nice, gaping hole in my wrist. It hurt like hell, but blood came rushing out. Camila continued to hold Benny’s head as I pressed my wrist to her mouth. Nothing happened at first. I could feel the blood just pooling in her mouth. Finally, I saw her throat move. It was only seconds, but it felt like forever. She swallowed one gulp and then another and another, moving her lips against my skin.

  “That should be enough. Here.” Camila tossed me the thick belt to Benny’s robe. My wrist was already healing, but it would takee a few minutes for the wound to close completely.

  Camila must have put out a silent call to Ginger because she appeared with wet washcloths in her hand. She had one of our ceremonial knives in the other. Quickly, Ginger locked Benny’s bedroom door. Great thinking, considering the last thing we needed was Jill or Sam or Amy busting in and seeing all of this. Ginger came back over to us and passed the cloths to Camila, who started wiping the blood and Benny’s spit off her mouth.

  “We wait now,” Camila said. “If you killed her, you’re a dead woman. I hope you know that. I can’t save your ass from Dalhem this time.”

  No shit was on the tip of my tongue, but I kept my mouth shut. I had just thrown myself into a cluster fuck of epic proportions. Hell-bound proportions. If Benny didn’t wake up, Dalhem would easily have me executed and I’d be playing with his pitchfork-baring cousins in the fiery pits of eternity. Though at the moment that was the least of my worries. I was losing Benny. Not knowing what else to do, I started to pray, for my salvation and Benny’s life.

  I lost track of time, as if there’s some way to mark progression when you’re begging your Lord and savior in the most selfish of ways, full of fear that your own needs have set things in motion, things that can’t be fixed. I don’t know what told me to open my eyes. There was no sign, no sound, but when I did, Benny’s eyes snapped open and she let out a heaving, gasping breath.

  “Oh God, Benny.” I reached for her, but before I could scoop her up, Camila hauled off and punched me, full force, in the arm. “Fucking shit, bitch! That hurt!” I looked down just to make sure the thing wasn’t broken. It felt like I’d been hit with a tire iron.

  “You deserved it.” Camila took Ginger’s hand and they vanished from the room. I couldn’t wait for my next conversation with them.

  Benny coughed and sat up on her own. “What happened?” The color was coming back to her face.

  “I bit you.”

  “I know.” She looked around at the blood-covered rags beside her and the blood on her sweater. Her eyes started to well up. Like always, she took a moment to regain her composure. “What happened after that?”

  “Camila, uh, Camila released you and then I gave you my blood. That’s mine,” I told her as I motioned to the red stain on her top. “I think that snapped you out of it.”

  She started shaking. I moved closer and rubbed her shoulder. “What is it, B?”

  “I think…I died.”

  At that exact moment, Dalhem filled my head with every bit of his essence. He was furious, enraged to the point that I had to cover my eyes. I felt like his anger was trying to bore holes through my skull.

  “What’s going on?” Benny asked, grabbing my hand. “Cleo?”

  “Answer your phone,” Dalhem said through me. Her cell phone started ringing on her nightstand. Dalhem pried my eyes open and made me stand. He took in the sight of Benny though my eyes, her ashen face and the blood on her clothes and chest. He squeezed my skull a little harder.

  “Hello?” she said.

  “Get yourself cleaned up and come home. Right now. Camila will drive you.”

  Benny turned and looked at me. Dalhem and I both stared back at her. “Yes, Daddy,” she said faintly.

  Before I could say a word, my body was pulled apart and dragged toward Dalhem.

  *

  My parts reappeared in an unfamiliar room, somewhere between the chandelier and the floor. I say my parts because Dalhem refused to let me take form. I hung in the air, my particles conscious of everything going on around me. Dalhem was somewhere nearby, screaming at the top of his lungs. As he came closer, the chandelier started to shake.

  The door slammed
open all on its own. Benny came rushing into the room with a woman right behind her. And Dalhem followed.

  He was in his full demon form, nude with black scaly skin. His claws were balled into tight fists and his wings seemed to twitch. Air blew from his nostrils as he kicked a coffee table out of the way. It crashed into a bookcase across the room.

  The woman, I suddenly realized, was Benny’s mother, Mrs. Tarver. They looked nearly identical in the face. She had an oversized men’s robe wrapped around her slight body. She lightly tugged Benny’s arm, begging Benny to face her. “You promise you’re okay? Your daddy told me what happened.”

  “Yes, Mama. I’m fine. Where is she?” She turned and glared at Dalhem.

  “She is here.” With an invisible kick to the ribs, Dalhem let me fall to the floor. I grabbed my side as the pain quickly dissipated, my blood quickly patching what should have been a few broken bones.

  Benny ran across the room and helped me up. She’d showered and changed. Dalhem must have had me in pieces for over an hour. “Are you all right?” Benny asked.

  “The fuck,” I groaned, rubbing my side. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

  “I should kill you now,” Dalhem growled.

  “Daddy!” Benny tried to step between us, but her presence wouldn’t do a thing once Dalhem made up his mind. He towered over us both. I looked up into his golden eyes, glowing hot with fire, a hatred he’d had for me since the first day of my demon birth. Still, I was alive for a reason, most likely two reasons named Benny and Camila. And even though I’d made a serious mistake, my blood was his.

  “Do you have any idea what you have done? What you have both done?” He looked between Benny and me.

  “Listen. I didn’t know—” I replied.

  “You will address me properly!”

  “Master. My master, I didn’t know what biting Benny would do.”

  “You did not simply bite her. You have violated my Camila’s blood bond. You’ve forced my Camila to violate an oath she kept to me, as well as a pledge made by her Ginger. You killed my only child. We would have lost her forever if my Camila had not acted so quickly.”

  “But I’m fine now,” Benny said, stepping closer to Dalhem. “I’m fine.” She wasn’t. She was practically shaking. Her skin was oddly pale and there were shadows under her eyes. But despite her distress, for once, for the first time ever, Benny was fighting for me.

  “You’ll have me spare her?” Dalhem asked her.

  “Yes, Daddy. You know I would.”

  “And what of your tu’lah? What of the pledge that marks you, my Benita? Do you know what this means?”

  “You and Mama said it was my choice. The tu’lah is between you and Paeno, Daddy. You will just have to choose another human for her if I—”

  “If you choose to be with this one who does not value you or your love!” Dalhem shouted again. This time a crack split across the ceiling. Mrs. Tarver stepped forward and touched his trembling talon. I could tell he would have shaken off anyone else, but her touch seemed to calm him down. A little.

  “And what will you do?” he said to me. “Now that you have broken these bonds? Do you even want her? Or was this another of your tantrums, and when your emotional tide turns you will toss her aside again?”

  I looked at Benny. “Does he know everything? Does he know why?”

  “Yes, he does. Daddy, can we just talk? Please. Just give me and Cleo some time talk to each other.”

  “Sweetheart, please.” Mrs. Tarver looked up at him with her big blues that matched Benny’s.

  He sucked in a shuddering breath before glaring back at Benny and me. “You will have your talk, then, but if this is your path, my Benita, you both will see this path to be untrue. And no matter your choice, the debt will be paid,” Dalhem said. And then he vanished from the room.

  Chapter Ten

  Cleo

  We followed Mrs. Tarver down the hall to what turned out to be a small guest bedroom. She opened the door for us, a slight, yet earnest smile touching her lips. “You girls can stay in here for a little while. The sun will be up soon.”

  “Thanks, Mama.” I watched at Mrs. Tarver passed Benny a long dagger with a bejeweled handle.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Tarver,” I said as I watched their exchange.

  “We’ll talk later,” she replied, reminding me it wasn’t just the demon father I’d have to deal with, but the human mother too.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “What’s that?” I asked Benny once we were alone.

  She gently placed the knife on one of the night tables, then hopped up on the high four-poster bed. “It’s one of our family blades.”

  “Oh. You’re not okay, are you?” The blood I had given her had brought her back, but it wasn’t enough to restore her fully.

  “It’s a little weird not being bound to Camila. It’s making me feel strange. I think I just need to rest, but we should talk first. I’ll be fine.”

  “Here.” The skin on my wrist had already healed. This time I lightly punctured my skin as I walked across the room to her. Benny hesitated for a moment as I held out my hand, but eventually she took my arm and drank from my wrist. The color came back to her cheeks almost immediately. I could have stopped her. I let her drink a minute more. I wanted a moment to savor the connection before we went any further. I held in a deep growl as my fangs dropped in my mouth. I wanted to bite her again, and then fuck her.

  Finally, she released my hand and leaned against the bedpost. “Thanks.”

  “No problem.”

  “So, we should talk.”

  “We should.” For both of our sakes, I took a seat in a chair near the door. I couldn’t be trusted near her, especially now that she no longer bore Camila’s bond. I looked Benny over. My eyes settled on the mark on her arm. “I think we need to figure out what we do about that first.”

  Benny touched her skin. “It depends.”

  “On what?”

  “Whether you’ll actually have me, and not because of what Daddy said.”

  “You know exactly what I want.”

  “I know you don’t want me to move to China, but—”

  “Benny. Seriously.” I laughed. “I want you. All of it. The whole deal. The way I wanted you before. That hasn’t changed.”

  “Is that why you told me you wanted to be friends?” she said softly, like the request had been the biggest insult I’d tossed her way.

  “I told you I wanted to be friends because you weren’t understanding where I was coming from, and it hurt too much to love someone who wouldn’t even recognize my pain whether she agreed with it or not.”

  “Well, I recognize it now.”

  “Do you?”

  “When I—when I wasn’t here, I couldn’t feel anything. Not you, not Camila or Ginger. Mama and Daddy were gone. I’ve never felt that empty before. It hurt.” She looked at me, her blue eyes filled with wild distress. “I died, Cleo.”

  “Shit, Benny.” I rushed toward the bed and pulled her to me, and for the first time ever, in the whole time I had known her, Benny cried. There were moments where I had debated whether she even had tear ducts, but she was sobbing now against my neck. I felt her warm, salty tears against my skin. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—I’m sorry,” was all I could say.

  “I was here and then one second, I wasn’t…I…I…didn’t know that’s what you felt. I didn’t know that’s what you’d been through. I’m sorry.”

  “Shh,” I hushed her as I rocked her against my chest. “Shit. I’m so sorry, Benny. I’m so sorry. It was so stupid of me to do that.” I let out a slightly maniacal laugh. “I guess some rules are meant to be followed.” You don’t bite another demon’s feeders. That’s all there is to it, but I had been thinking it all along. I’d even said it to Benny herself. She was mine and she always would be. My demon didn’t respect her vows to any other. When it came to Benny, my demon took over. The idea of losing her to Paeno was too much.

  “I screwed up, didn�
��t I? I don’t understand your attachment to your mother, but I understand how you feel now. I understand.”

  “B…”

  “So will you have me?”

  I stared at her face, still wet with tears. And then I looked down at her upturned palm. Just inches below, her pulse beat beneath her skin, tempting and taunting me. It would be so easy to accept her, no more questions asked. I loved Benny. I always would, but after the crazy-ass night we’d been through, I hadn’t forgotten the days and nights leading up to this point. I hadn’t forgotten who Benny was deep down inside.

  “We do this my way this time. No more hiding. I don’t give a shit what the girls think. I’m not going to feed from you and then pretend we aren’t together. I’m not doing it.”

  “I know.”

  “And you have to let me miss them, Benny. I know you don’t like my mama and you don’t understand why I can’t let my family go, but you have to let me miss them. I want you, but you have to give me that or else this won’t work. I get your need for order and control and privacy, all that shit, but you can’t control me and what I do and certainly how I feel,” I said.

  It sucked that I had to lay it out, but at the same time, it felt great to finally put my foot down with her. I loved her more than she would ever comprehend, and if Dalhem didn’t decide to kill me anyway for putting her in danger or fucking up whatever fifth-century deal he had with Paeno, I couldn’t have her by my side if she couldn’t see me as more than a means to satisfy her needs. I had until the end of the world to live with myself, and I wouldn’t be able to do that without my self-respect.

  “Tomorrow night,” she said. “We’ll tell the girls and the sister-queens. I promise.”

  “Are you sure?” For any other couple this was no-brainer shit, but for us…well, one of us, anyway, this was a big deal.

  “Yes.”

  “What about Paeno? Tell me what’s going on there.”

  Benny sighed deeply, but then related the whole story of how every one hundred years Dalhem and his brothers and sisters exchanged humans, as I thought, much like cattle. Paeno had her eye fixed on Benny, and when Benny thought I was really done with her, she’d agreed to fulfill Dalhem’s end of the tu’lah as a means of getting as far away from me and the remains of our relationship as possible.