Page 73 of Demon Bound

“I like having your arms around me.”

He let his glamour drop away. He waited, as if questioning whether she would feel different when the illusion was gone. Raiya took in his dusky skin and elegantly curving horns, the many scars crossing his skin, and the soft glow of his prosthesis.

“Do you know that you’re beautiful?” she asked softly.

He tilted his head at her.

“I suppose you must know that you’re impressive,” she said. “And I suppose demons are designed to seduce mortals, so maybe it goes without saying. But you’re beautiful. I’d bet that you’re uncommonly beautiful even among other demons.” She put her hand on his arm. Corded lengths of muscle moved under her palm as his hand curled into a fist. “You are a marvel to look at. To touch.” She ran her fingertips along his forearm, tracing a vein. Goosebumps appeared in the wake of her touch. Raiya looked up at him. He was frowning faintly.

His hand closed over hers. Hot, rough fingers engulfed hers, but they did so slowly, with caution. He leaned down, his dark hair draping to obscure her view of the tent as his face neared hers. He halted there, inches from her skin, like he’d almost lost his nerve, and then he touched his lips to hers. He did it so lightly that it almost wasn’t there, like a feather brushed across her lips. But he lingered there in absolute silence that was broken only by the pattering of rain outside. There was nothing confident or seductive in this kiss. It was tentative and fearful, and filled with longing.

He pulled away hesitantly. “I am happy to do as you ask,” he murmured, still close.

It took Raiya a few moments to remember what she’d asked of him. To hold her. “Happy?” she echoed.

“Yes.”

Raiya didn’t know if she’d ever seen him happy before.

He unclasped the blanket-cloak hanging over his body and set it aside. Then Raiya’s heart sped up as he removed his sarong, too. She studied his entire body, all his curves and angles and points. He was art. He was perfectly formed, and even the imperfect parts, they were perfect too. He was exactly as the gods—or the eldresses, or the universe, or whomever—had made him. Exactly himself.

Looking at him now, she was filled with an intense desire for him. Not to make love to him, exactly, but to have him, keep him, see him, protect him. The feeling filled her chest in a pleasant and unpleasant bundle, like lead and tiny fluttering birds.

Azreth went still. “What is that?”

She grew self-conscious. “You can feel that?”

“Yes.” He put an arm around her waist as he leaned close, breathing her in.

“Can you feed from it?”

“Yes.” He sounded as surprised as she. “It smells sweet.”

She had thought demons only craved hatred and fear and lust. She knew he felt deeper emotions than those, but she had not thought they would appease his hunger.

He settled in beside her, beneath the blankets. Wrapping his arm around her, he pulled her against him, tucking her head beneath his chin and conforming his thighs to hers.

She slept better than she had in months.

Chapter 23

After a few days in camp, Azreth seemed to run out of things to do. He followed Raiya around as she helped Jai and Madira with their chores, and he sat and watched her in the evenings while she drafted new counter-bindings or worked on her baton, which didn’t bother her, but she could tell something was on his mind.

“What’s wrong?” she asked him, working her stylus into the tricky curve of an Auren-Li rune.

He put his chin in his hand. “Nothing. I have everything I need. We are not hungry or cold. We are not in imminent danger. But I don’t feel content. I am restless.”

“You mean you’re bored.”

He looked thoughtful, as if that possibility hadn’t occurred to him. “Yes. Bored,” he said, rolling the word around in his mouth like it was deeply unfamiliar.

“Have you never been bored before? When mortals have free time, we socialize or play games or create things.”

He silently contemplated that. That night, he abstained from sleep yet again, though he must have been exhausted.

In the morning, he disappeared while Raiya was in the bathing tent with Jai and some of the other women. Later, shewas surprised to find him fully glamoured and hauling water from the nearby river, holding several large buckets on each arm. A group of Roamers lounged nearby, watching him with amusement. Raiya gleaned that they were the ones responsible for carrying water that day, and he’d relieved them of that task. As Azreth went back for a third trip to gather another six bucketsful, the group clapped and cheered him on, bemused but clearly won over. Azreth wrinkled his brow at them.

After they assured him that he had brought more water than they could possibly use, Madira introduced him to his friends, a group of young men and teenage boys. They were chopping wood for the fires that night, so Azreth joined in. He kept going long after the others had tired, and even when he had a neat stack as high as himself beside him, he seemed like he could have carried on.

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