Page 10 of Torn Between Two Worlds

“Well that was pleasant of him,” she muttered.

“No shit. And you haven’t heard him chuckle. They’re his signature moves, the chuckle and poofing,” Stryder replied from across the room.

She hadn’t even realized that, while the other man had been talking, she’d walked away from Stryder. Turning to tell him to get out, she inhaled sharply and began to back away.

Stryder wasn’t sure what was causing her to be distressed this time, but he was going to have a talk with her about controlling her emotions better. That was a huge rule in war. It was the top rule, in his opinion. He took a step toward her, only to have her raise her hand and whisper to him.

“Just don’t move. Just stand there.”

In the center of the room, the air seemed to be distorting, growing fuzzy and almost seeming to shimmer.

“No, no, no,” she whispered as she backed up quicker until her back pressed into the wall opposite him. She smacked into the hard surface as she tried to escape, but had no room to, still chanting the word no over and over.

He fixed his eyes to the center of the room, from which her gaze never strayed. The distortion was so intense, he could barely see the other side of the room through it. Things literally began to appear out of the pocket of air in her room. They had to have come from his brother’s book. The guy had warned him that the bad guys, who were able to get through, could only do so in the span of time a book was being read. For that, Stryder was actually thankful. He knew how to fight them, and he knew how to beat them. They were nothing more than lesser demons trying to gain more power, easy for a Horsemen's second.

In fact, they were cut from the same genetic cloth as him—just smaller. Their eyes still glowed red, and they still had tiny teeth that functioned a bit like fangs. There were only three of them, but he was pissed. The low-life demons should not be there. Despite the fact that he was told the exact opposite, it didn't make sense that demons would attack when there was hardly any around anymore in his books, except certain earthbound points, like the bar. But that was what he was there for, to protect.

Watching the fear take hold in her eyes, the erection he’d had immediately deflated. The blue of her eyes had turned so dark that, had they not been widened in fear, they would have been black. Which he thought was so hot because they’d looked like his. He actually heard her whimper from across the room, and his body responded with pure, unfiltered rage. Fangs, barely longer than the other demons’ grew in his mouth, and his nails elongated and curved, becoming claws. The horns that only horsemen and his brothers could generate did, and his eyes blacked out.

In an instant, he was on them. It was child’s play for War. And between his training and the link to the Horseman, it was a bad day to be the bad guys.

Turning on the one closest to him, he swung his arm wide, claws seamlessly slicing through the demon’s abdomen. Another swipe severed its head from its body. The second ran at him, and he readied himself to grab the idiot and tear his throat out. Searing pain lanced through his back as the third slashed him with its own claws. Kicking backward, he knocked it back, hoping not straight at Ciara. He lunged forward and thrust his claws into the demon’s chest in front of him. Yanking them out, he heard its cry of pain and let it crumple to the floor to bleed out and suffer from the poison in his claws.

Ciara screamed, and he turned to deal with the one he had launched backward and saw the damned thing running toward him. Stryder reached out to grab him, but the fucker raced past him and back into the shimmering doorway, a piece of Ciara’s shirt in his hands. A piece that would allow him or any others he was working with, or just himself if he now acted alone with two of his brethren dead, to track her movements. Stryder tried to rush forward to jump in, but the damn thing popped out of existence far faster than it had distorted.

Then the smell of poison, other than his own, reached his nose. “The Initiative.” His snarl was quiet. He knew he didn't need to explain it to her, since she was reading the book, after all. The human group bent on the destruction of all things demon, had gotten to this group first. Were they trying to stop the demons or come across on their own and live demon free? He knew it had to be the latter, but he couldn't fucking be bothered with that now since the threat was gone.

Turning with a snarl, he tried to let go of his anger and the small trace of fear, so that his face would turn back and not frighten her more. He was a bit shocked to see her scared during the attack if she’d had her powers for so many years.

“Ciara, are you okay?”

She was staring at the air pocket, not in horror, but disgust. “He never let me see them. Alcott,he always caught them as they came in. I never saw. I never saw him fight anything or anything that was coming after me before. Just that damn fucking distortion.”

When she turned to him, her eyes didn’t change to fear or hate. They actually seemed to soften a little. “Thank you.”

It was so quiet, it was almost inaudible, and he wondered briefly if he’d read her lips or even her mind. But he hadn’t, she’d thanked him.

She bit her lower lip, just as she had when he’d been touching himself. That was all it took. Her gratitude and sucking on her lower lip. His cock jerked to life, hard, and jammed into the zipper of his jeans. He crossed the space between them in two steps and lifted her in his arms, pressing her into his body like before. Except, that time, her legs wrapped around him, pulling him into her even more.

Lifting her head to look into her eyes, he pressed his mouth to hers a heartbeat later, crushed his lips into her and thrust his hips.

She was in shock. She could feel the long, hard erection that Stryder was pushing into her body, rubbing her clothes against her core as he opened her mouth with his tongue. His tongue laved at hers, tangling them together. Her brain couldn’t seem to fire off any responses that didn’t involve what was happening between them. She was kissing him back, melting into him, meeting his tongue stroke for stroke and sucking it into her mouth. Shocks were streaking through her body, and she realized she was grinding into him. She was wet, and she was pushing up against and onto his erection as small moans formed in her throat.

Where his fingers ran over her skin, she would have sworn electricity was forming. She bet, if she’d opened her eyes, she would see little bolts lifting off her skin before he was touching her somewhere else. His hands were moving gently over her, so gentle for a being that really ought to know only war and violence.

Her body jerked as his fingers brushed over her inner thigh. She felt him pushing her sweats down, and she unhappily unwound her legs from his waist. They’d only been gone a second when he grabbed them and wrapped them around him again, his cock now only separated from her by the silk of her underwear. He traced a finger over the crotch of them, and she jolted, slamming her down onto his erection, so big she didn’t know how he was still in his pants.

“Gods, sweetheart, you’re wet for me.” He rubbed his finger over the fabric in circles as he ran his tongue down her neck. “So wet, I could slip right into you.”

She had no response except to take his hand, slide it under the edge of her panties and grab his head to kiss him.

His fingers stroked across her clit, and she bit his lip and jerked onto his hand. She heard him growl when she took one arm off his neck and unzipped his pants. His erection popped out and fell into her hand. He was so big. She could barely wrap her hand around his dick to stroke him. As she did, he slipped a finger inside her folds, and when she cried out, she saw him smile.

“That’s it, Ci. Make that sound for me while you touch me, while I touch you.”

His finger worked in and out of her, faster than before. She couldn’t stop herself from riding it, from pushing down on it as he added a second, and she stroked him harder.

His thumb found her clit and rubbed her too. Her body was going to burst. She was already starting to see colors, and her hand released his cock. All she could do was slam her body onto his hand as her head fell backward. She could feel her walls start to pulse, making his fingers hit them harder, deeper.

---