Page 50 of Hell Sent

If someone had done to him what he’d just done to her, he would have tried to destroy them. But she accepted it as if she thought she deserved it.

Because she’s used to it,said a voice in the back of his mind. Nirlan was her mate, and he hurt her. She was accustomed to being dragged into bed and hurt. It was the one thing she’d asked him not to do.I don’t want to be bruised or bloodied.

He hated that he’d done this. He hated that this was what he was. He wished she had sharp teeth to bite him back. He wanted to be hurt.

“I have broken the terms of our agreement,” he said. “Strike me, and I will lie still while you pay the hurt back.”

She just scoffed. “I don’t want to hurt you. I will never hurt you.”

“I cannot say the same.”

“I don’t believe you.” She put her hands around his face and drew him up, then pressed her mouth against his. Azreth tensed, anticipating a bite.

But he never felt her teeth. Just her breath mixing with his. She was soft and warm and gentle, her lips lax but full enough to give a slight pressure. She stayed there for a long moment, and he remained perfectly still, his heart in his throat. It would be so easy for one of them to inch forward and ravage the other with teeth.

It was intoxicatingly intimate. He had a strange urge to open his mouth and taste her, but he didn’t move. He’d done enough to frighten her already.

Finally, she broke away, still holding his face. The look she gave him was one of utmost trust and affection, and he nearly broke.

Mortals and demons should not be together. Raiya deserved better than Azreth and his violent urges. But he couldn’t bring himself to leave. With every day that passed, he was further gone than before. Before he’d met Raiya, he would never have allowed anyone to touch him this way. He would certainly never have enjoyed it.

His enthrallment pressed him to throw himself at her feet again.Let me serve you forever,he wanted to say.I am yours.It took all of his willpower to stay silent, but he knew he couldn’t last much longer. He was a slave to the enthrallment. To her.

He wove another healing spell, lowering his hand toward her thighs. “Are you hurt here?”

“I’m fine, Azreth.”

He hesitated, his spell pulsing slightly on his fingertips as it waited to be applied. “I know you are strong,” he said slowly, not wanting to offend her. “I do not offer this because I think you are weak. I offer it humbly, as a service to you. Please accept—as long as it doesn’t displease you to have me touch you.”

She looked bemused. But after a moment, she nodded. “If you wish.”

She held still as his hand moved between her legs—almost, but not quite, touching her. He hovered there, using the spell to sense the damage, then pushed the magic past her skin. Her inner thighs were hot and slick when his fingers brushed against them.

Raiya swallowed audibly. When he glanced up to meet her eyes, she looked down. “It… feels better,” she said, nodding.

With her encouragement, he gently flattened his palm upward, cupping her body to pour the spell into her. He heard her inhale softly in surprise. Soothing magic sank into her.

For the first time, he glanced up to try to work out where they were. They were in a dark field he didn’t recognize, outside of Ontag-ul. He had no idea how they’d gotten here.

“How… did you do this?”

“A teleportation enchantment. A shortcut through the aether to move from one place to another.” Exhaling softly, she lifted her arms around his neck, leaning against his chest. “I was afraid I wouldn’t get you back,” she said, very quietly.

His heart burned.

“Inside,” she whispered. “Please.”

He slid a finger just past her entrance, stroking her softly but making no effort to urge her toward climax again. He was no longer sure whether he was healing her or pleasuring her, but it didn’t seem to matter. Her arms tightened around him, and she rocked slowly against his palm as she embraced him.

Twenty-One

Raiya was incredible.

Azreth was astounded by the teleportation enchantment she’d made, even though she called it sloppy work. Perhaps other kin knew of this magic, but he’d never seen its like. On top of that, she had fought her way into the temple and through the cultists to get to him. She’d even convinced several other mortals to help her rescue him—her night elf Roamer friends, Jai and Madira, and (to his mingled confusion and annoyance) Adamus, the Paladin they’d set free on the road, whom she’d run into again in the city.

When she’d left Azreth in the temple after the cultists trapped him, she hadn’t run to save herself. She’d immediately gone back to the Roamers, demanded assistance on his behalf, planned a rescue, recruited help, and produced a powerful enchantment to shift him out, all in a matter of hours.

Azreth imagined it over and over, thinking of how angry and determined she must have been to have done all that for him. He pictured her storming into the camp and shouting orders, mercilessly blasting through cultists with her baton, thinking of him all the while.

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