Rapture's Edge

from the shadows, and one by one, mouths hanging open, every person shrank back as he passed.

Demetrius.

Here.

Here!

The music died. Hushed whispers ran through the gathering. A palpable crackle of excitement leapt from person to person, viral, infectious.

He prowled toward her, exuding a raw current of danger, feral and heated, his eyes locked on hers. When he reached the edge of the crowd he paused. Deliberately, holding her gaze, he slowly unzipped the black hoodie he was wearing, shrugged it off, and let it fall to his feet.

That was when the air actually turned to fire.

Audible gasps went up through the crowd. The ham-hock hands of the man who’d just been ready to fight her trembled. Someone whispered an astonished, Merde!

And beyond her thundering heart and frozen muscles and horror, Eliana could appreciate why.

Huge, bare-chested, and leonine, D stood exposed, chin lifted, eyes hooded, shoulders thrown back. His body was carved and corded with muscle, a sculptor’s imagination gone wild. From the V-shaped muscles that rose from the waistline of his low-slung leathers to the articulated corrugation of his rock-hard abs to the bulging biceps of his arms and the flare of heavy lats on his back that tapered down to his narrow waist in an inverted triangle, he was magnificent. Breathtaking. Hercules, Adonis, Samson, and Tarzan, all rolled into one.

He had multiple, elaborate tattoos: the stylized Eye of Horus on his left shoulder, thick black tribal symbols tracked down the length of his right arm, an enormous cobra that snaked its way down from his neck, around his back, and up to his chest, where it coiled, sinuous. In the center of one loop of scales right over his heart there was inked a name in cursive letters with thorny vines and flowers patterned around.

The letters spelled out Eliana.

Astonished, she glanced back up at his face, noting the scratches she’d given him had already healed. He was smiling at her, a slow, seductive curve of his lips. “How ’bout a rematch?” he said in a low, amused rumble. “Five hundred says I win this time, too.”

Son of a bitch.

The crowd exploded into a frenzy. Bets were placed, money changed hands, and shouting and shoving and chaos ensued. From one corner of her eye she noticed Alexi standing with arms crossed, glaring back and forth between the two of them. The flabbergasted blonde beside him couldn’t tear her wide-eyed gaze from Demetrius’s naked chest.

He took a step forward. She took a step back. They began to circle each other slowly, warily, their gazes locked together. All the noise and movement faded to the background as her focus honed on his face. His movements. His breath.

Her own breath was ragged, her pulse a thunderstorm inside her skull.

“If you think I’m going to lead to you to the others, you’re wrong,” she said, low enough she knew only his ears would be able to hear. Over four hundred miles of hiding spaces in the catacombs; he’d have to search for days to find them, and by then they’d be long gone.

He cocked an eyebrow. The silver rings in it glinted in the light. “Not here for them, baby girl. I’m here for you.”

If he meant to anger her with his endearment, it worked. “Nice tattoo, by the way,” she snapped, glancing at his chest. “I’ll be carving that off your dead body later.”

He tutted. “You’ll have to kill me first. Good luck with that.”

Then he lunged forward in a blur of bronzed skin and leather and grabbed her.

She twisted out of his grasp, using all her strength to tear free. But he had her again in an instant and pinned her arms behind her back. Heady and warm and masculine, the scent of his skin flamed hot in her nose as he leaned down and whispered into her ear, “You’re not trying very hard. You need to give the crowd their money’s worth. Butterfly.” She felt the fleet brush of his lips across the flesh of her shoulder, and then he released her and sprang away.

She whirled around with a savage snarl. He was on the other side of the space cleared by the circle of bodies, hands on his hips, staring at her with a heated expression somewhere between amusement and anticipation. He stretched a hand out and crooked two fingers at her, a silent command.

Come.

Oh no. Oh no he didn’t.

Fury blinded her, and she went on pure instinct, striking out, hitting, kicking. The next few moments were a blur. There was the sensation flying, of falling, of gravity spinning away. Her hands were around his throat, his hands came around her waist, and suddenly she was flat on her back in the center of the fighting ring with Demetrius straddling her body, his hands pinning her wrists to the ground above her head.

The roar of the crowd was deafening.

He grinned down at her, victorious, and then, before she could scream the curse that was on the tip of her tongue, his mouth was on hers.

Ache and salt and softness, the ground cold and hard against her back, Demetrius warm and hard against her chest, pulling greedily at her lips, drinking deep…the sharp edges of her fury began, awfully, to melt.

He pulled away first, panting, flipped her over, and in one horrifying, fluid movement, flung her over his bent knee so she was staring in shock at the dusty, scuffed ground.

And then—horror of all horrors—he spanked her.

In front of everyone.

Three times.

Hard.

The crowd went absolutely insane.

“That’s for every year you were gone,” D growled, bending near her ear. She kicked and screamed, fighting him, but he held her fast, immovable and ironfisted, trapping both her hands in one of his, leaning his weight onto her back with his forearm.

Then he spanked her another three times. Her scream of outrage was drowned by the delighted, uproarious cheers of the spectators.

“That’s for calling me a liar, a murderer, and a traitor.”

Her cheeks burned molten hot. She couldn’t get away, she was at his complete mercy—

He spanked her again, three more hard, humiliating times, then lifted her up, took her in his arms, and said, “And that’s for the next three things you’re going to do that will annoy the hell out of me.”

Then he pulled her against him and kissed her again, in full view of everyone, his hands in her hair and his mouth hot on hers and a low purr of pleasure rumbling deep in his chest.

“Not cool,” Alexi said from somewhere nearby. “So not cool.”

She came to her senses and shoved him away just as the crowd broke suddenly apart and began a wild, careening stampede toward the numerous shadowed tunnels that led out of New Harmony.

“Cataflics!” someone shouted, pushing by.

Police.

Eliana leapt to her feet and bounded away, flashing through the crowd, using the chaos to her advantage to duck into a low access tunnel that was rarely used because of the treacherous, unmarked pits that would suddenly appear in the uneven floor, plunging down into darkness.

She knew without looking that Demetrius followed not far behind.

20 Devils Are Everywhere

The prostitute was a blonde, as Silas promised, but not his favorite blonde, the one who screamed with such beautiful abandon, the one whose milky pale skin welted to the perfect berry pink, bruised to the most