“Everly.” Harlow snaps his fingers in my face. “Breathe.” He motions his hands and takes deep lungfuls of air with me. “Eyes on me.” He extends both his arms so his hands block my view of the creatures ambling closer. “Don’t look at anyone.”
His eyes dart to the guy with fangs, and he hisses. “Back off.”
“What are you going to do about it, incubus?” A voice to my right says. He’s harsh and says incubus like someone would say weakling.
“She belongs to the count, fucker.”
Harlow stares at Fang Boy, but I keep my eyes on Harlow. Auras press into me, closing me in.
Everything I learned from the Academy of Divination was all about clairvoyance, communing, and detecting good and evil—not fighting it.
Harlow steps forward, close, but not enough to touch me. Wind brushes my long hair aside.
“Everly,” Harlow’s voice urges me, “hold on to me.”
He lifts his arms.
“But you said…”
“Step on my feet. Grab hold of my jacket.”
This doesn’t seem like a good idea. “But…”
“Everly!” he hisses. “Just don’t touch my skin.”
I wrap myself around him, trusting his imploring tone. He wraps his arms around me, crouches, and then we’re up in the air.
Flying isn’t how I thought it would be. I imagined being lighter than air, feeling the freedom of flight and a gentle breeze as I sailed along.
Instead, the ride is bumpy. My body is tossed side-to-side. Invisible wings beat hard and fast. Wind tosses strands of hair in my face. Gravity pulls me and I began slipping down Harlow’s taut body. All I can register is how high up we are and that if I fall, I won’t survive.
“Everly!” Harlow pins me to him so tightly, I can’t breathe. His hands grasp at my dress, and I know he doesn’t have enough purchase to hold me, but he can’t make skin-to-skin contact. The consequences of getting distracted by mind-blowing pleasure will distract us for the whole thirty seconds before I go splat on the ground.
Worry shrouds his expression. “Stand on my feet!”
I try to climb him, but his leather jacket is slippery, and I lose more ground than I gain. His t-shirt stretches in front and rides up on his sides. I either have to wrap my arms around his neck or grab his hand before I fall. Both would expose us to skin contact.
Harlow looks down. “Hold on.”
He dives, and I’m weightless.
Crap, this is scary.
He wraps one leather-clad arm under my thighs, and with the other, around my back. He pulls up—hard. It feels like I’m going to fall into an eternal pit, and my stomach drops, but I feel him hit the ground running, and I wrap my legs around his waist. In the excitement, I squeeze my eyes shut.
We trip and I land on my back.
“Oofff,” I grunt. But falling down has never looked better.
FIVE♀♥♂♂♂♂EVERLY
Harlow is above me, looking down at me. He pants and stares at me almost like he’s entranced. He looks a little drugged, and stares at my lips. I can feel… heat radiating off him. And I swallow hard because his heat does something to me—it conjures heat within me.
I gulp down excess adrenaline, a sour-sweet taste. “Harlow?”
Still breathing heavy, he responds by lowering his waist down to mine and groaning. Heat races up my neck as I feel a very hard part of his anatomy pressing down between the middle of my legs. And the heat within me suddenly starts to burn… in a very good way.
“Ah… Harlow?” It’s not that we didn’t share a moment in the train, a very amazing moment, but the word incubus rings through my ears. His own words—balls deep and drugged up shell, are enough to remind me he’s a sex demon.
And the only place for a sex demon, or a demon of any kind, is Dread. The one place I decidedly do not want to be.
Yet, I’m even more afraid of what might happen if I didn’t have him here to protect me—if that’s really what he’s doing. The stares from everyone on the platform were merciless. No question, I was food to them. I definitely… I definitely don’t belong here.
Right, you belong at the Academy of Enchantment, I tell myself. In Arcadia.
So, how in the hell did I end up here? In Dread?
I can tell from Harlow’s lust-filled gaze I’m not out of the woods yet.
“Harlow,” I try once more.
But he trembles, and his expression is remorse and lust, fear and desire. I can tell he’s trying to resist the urge to touch me. Or kiss me. But he needs something to tip him over the edge one way or another. I admit, giving in to the pleasure he could give me is tempting. I’ve heard whispers about incubi, whispers of the type of pleasure they can bring. That is, before they suck all your life essence from you.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out the drawbacks of having sex with an incubus. Textbooks say they are uncontrollable monsters that give in to their sexual whims, uncaring about draining their victims of life force until there’s nothing left to give.
Yet, here I am, underneath one who’s fighting hard to keep his urges at bay. Harlow isn’t the typical sex demon written in pages—at least I don’t think he is, but it’s not like I’ve known him long. So far, though, I can say he seems like a real, struggling being. A creature with a dark power, sure, but still warring against right and wrong.
However, I can help him on making the right choice.
I reach around to the ring on his pinky finger and, careful
