Chapter 8Sasha

Chapter

Eight

SASHA

I was breathing like I’d run a marathon up a mountain by the time I made it back to the cave. I entered the stone room, pulling the horned hyena creature behind me, and ignored the presence of the male sitting against the wall in silent judgment. Fuck him. I crossed realms, traveled to the one place on any fucking planet, realm, or solar system I didn’t want to be, and I did it all for him. The least he could do was tell me his goddamn name.

I dropped the carcass I had field dressed on the stone floor. I had left the hide on but removed all the nasty insides, leaving them for the forest to devour. What I had left was a whole hell of a lot of meat that could feed a village. Or one Mr. Grumpypants demon.

With a smile full of teeth aimed in the direction of the male who sat silently watching, I stomped back out into the day that was quickly getting darker on the horizon, changing over from the dusky pink of day to a dark shade of lavender. I scanned past the trees and foliage with both sight and hearing but still didn’t sense any other demons. It was another strange aspect to the whole situation that I should probably question more than I have, but I wasn’t going to take it for granted. I had a feeling my mystery note writer had a lot more pull in the realm than I could imagine.

I quickly gathered as many large branches as well as some twigs as I could find without wandering too far. My energy was flagging to the point that my feet were dragging, and if I were a human, I would need to sleep for a week. But sleep wouldn’t help me. Having a decent portion of the meat I’d hauled back would help with my physical needs, but there was nothing to help my other needs except sitting in the middle of a crowded sex den. I needed sexual pheromones, and I needed them soon.

I glanced back toward the entrance of the cave, and a wave of heat swept through me so hard and fast that I gasped, doubling over and dropping all the wood I carried. No. No. I wasn’t going to allow this. I could make it. I’d faced worse times of hunger. When I’d turned twenty-one years and first came into my full succubus allure, I’d nearly gone feral with hunger. If it hadn’t been for Varek knowing what was happening, I might have started a full blown orgy in the middle of the street. He’d seen my glowing yellow eyes and the gleam of sexual hunger and thrown me over his shoulder. We didn’t talk of the shameless way I had rubbed against him that day or of the way I groped him.

When I woke up in the local bordello, locked in a room that Varek had paid the owner handsomely for, I was embarrassed but sated. He refused to accept my apologies when I’d opened the door to see he had been sitting outside my room, personally guarding me from any attempts to gain access to me. Apparently, I had put off so much sexually charged energy that the bordello had too many customers, and they ended up having to turn some away. The owner, instead of being upset about losing a room, smiled a wicked grin and offered me a job. Obviously, I didn’t take them up on their offer, but I did go there throughout the years when the need arose until Varek added the sex den to Brimstone.

I breathed deep, taking in huge lungfuls of fresh air as the painful heat pulsed through me. Once it lowered to a manageable level, I let out a small groan. I straightened back up and ran my hands over my face. Then I saw the filthy state of my hands and grimaced. Time to finish getting dinner prepared and on the fire so I could take a nice long dip in the pool.

I gathered up the wood I had dropped, turned back toward the cave, and froze. There, the male stood, watching me with an unreadable expression on his face. As I watched, a sneer lifted the corner of his broad mouth, and he turned away, slowly making his way back inside. For the briefest of moments, I thought I had seen heat in his black eyes. I shook my head. There was no way that I saw even the barest glimpse of want.

I strode back to the cave, only stumbling once, and walked past the pile of limbs I had left outside. Between what I was carrying and what I had left gathered at the entrance, there should be enough to cook a good portion of the meat. I wasn’t certain there was enough to last through the night, but it was probably better to not have any sign of our presence in the dark night.

I dropped the wood in the center of the floor and began arranging it. When I chanced a glance over toward the male, I paused, surprised to see he had kept himself busy while I had been outside. There was a large pile of meat carved in chunks and waiting to be cooked. I had to suppress the small smile that teased my lips.

I stood up from my prepared campfire and withdrew the lighter from my jacket pocket. With a flick of my thumb, I touched the flame to the dry wood and waited for the fire to grow before stepping back. Movement caught my attention, and I turned to see the male reaching out with a hesitant hand for the lighter I was still holding. I offered a better view to him with a smile.

“It’s called a lighter. There are quite a few useful inventions that come from the Earth realm.” I demonstrated to him the way to swipe his thumb over the grooved wheel, then handed it over. I watched in fascination as he inspected every aspect of the plastic and metal with curiosity before he placed his thumb exactly the way I had shown him. Though his hand trembled slightly from his lack of strength, the flame immediately sparked to life before quickly disappearing as he let go.

“You have to hold your thumb down to keep the flame going. But be careful because the metal gets pretty hot fairly quickly.”

He did what I said and left the flame running for a long minute before dropping it to the stone floor once the metal heated up to an unbearable degree. I bit back a laugh but couldn’t stop the grin that spread. I couldn’t help but imagine what it would be like to teach him about more things he’d never experienced. The Earth realm was as different from the Underworld as night and day. Hell, even the differences between the skies were going to be fun to show him.

I ground my jaw as I remembered that it wasn’t me that would be teaching him anything. I turned away quickly and stabbed several chunks of meat with a sharp stick. I would cook the meat the same way I had done the last time. It was the easiest way with our lack of utensils or pans. I didn’t think he’d care anyway, as long as he got to eat.

“While this is cooking, I’m going to go wash my hands. After you eat, I’ll show you the pool I found in the other room so you can wash up. If you want to. Not that I think you have to.” I cleared my throat uncomfortably. Then, I spun on my heel, practically running for the other room.

I dropped in front of the pool, quickly rubbing my hands and arms free of the filth from the day. Once I was sure I was as clean as I could get without soap and kicking my own ass for not thinking about it before leaving the mansion, I splashed water over my face. I was glad that I couldn’t see myself. I had a feeling that I would look right at home in a slasher film.

I shook my hands free of the water droplets that clung to my skin, then just knelt there in front of the dark pool. I could see reflections of the bioluminescent glow on the otherwise inky black surface of the water. My mind replayed his words from earlier as I stared blankly down. I had expected it, but hearing those words had sent a stabbing pain through my chest. I could imagine, even as I sat there in front of the pool of water, that blood was steadily leaking from the invisible wound.

I splashed more water on my heated face, ignoring the insistent pulsing low in my belly, and stood up. I turned around to see the male standing at the entrance to the pool room. Without a word to me, he slowly moved forward. He was able to walk much better unassisted than I had originally given him credit for. Then I remembered he had some water from the beelennya flowers I had left with him. The hydration might have given him enough strength to move around, but it wouldn’t last long without nutrients to feed his cells.

I gave him a stiff smile and moved to walk past him to give him a little privacy when his deep, raspy voice stopped me.

“Varos.”

It took me a long moment to realize what he’d said. When it finally hit me that he’d shared his name, I couldn’t stop the wide grin that spread across my lips. Luckily, he had already dismissed my presence, or he might have graced me with another one of his menacing snarls.

A loud splash stopped me at the entrance to the room, making me gasp and spin around. Visions of Varos losing balance and falling into the pool had me sprinting back to the water’s edge.

“Varos!” I screamed, the name echoing in the stone chamber eerily. Before I could do anything else, like jump in after him, Varos broke through the surface of the water, running his hands up over his face and back, pushing the wet, tangled strands of black hair from where they had been hanging since the moment I first saw him. Now, with his hair pulled back and most of the dirty smudges rinsed away, I could see his face clearly. And what I saw took my breath away.

I stepped back, then stepped back again. I had to put distance between the male and myself, or else I would be in serious danger of launching myself at him. His brothers were undeniably handsome, both of them so similar in appearance that someone who didn’t know them personally would have to do a double-take to spot the differences. Varos, though, had a harsher quality to his appearance than the other two. Maybe it had to do with his confinement and torture, or maybe he had been born a little differently in looks. Where Varek and Valen both had a suave, pretty-boy appeal to their features, Varos had striking, feral beauty. He reminded me of a deadly yet ethereal carnivorous plant here in the Underworld, drawing its prey in with brilliant colors and patterns so you’d almost be thankful for being eaten alive by something so gorgeous.

My knees felt weak as I ran away for the first time in over three hundred years. As I collapsed to the stone floor in front of the fire, my chest was heaving and I was gasping for breath. My whole body was trembling uncontrollably, and I threw my head back with my eyes squeezed tightly closed. I couldn’t do this. I needed to do this, but fucking hell, I wasn’t going to survive without some serious intervention.

The scent of roasting meat had my stomach rumbling, pulling me from my mental freakout. I grabbed the stick from the center of the fire and adjusted it to where it was on the outskirts of the flames. Reaching for another stick, I noted my hands were still unsteady and shook my head. I needed to get my shit together. Neither one of us needed the kind of drama my succubus nature could bring. I didn’t even know what would happen if I allowed myself to act without restraint. I didn’t have a good role model, so my expectations were very low.

After snatching up a second stick, I took one of my many knives and sharpened the end enough to spear several more chunks of meat on it. I noticed that there seemed to be quite a few less chunks of pre-cut meat from earlier and glanced around while wondering if Varos had been so hungry that he couldn’t wait for it to cook. I wouldn’t judge him; the hunger he was experiencing had to be excruciating. I was honestly impressed that he was capable of scenting the searing meat without jumping into the fire for a taste.

In the dark corner of the small room, I spotted a smug, very sleepy looking Max with a suspiciously round stomach and grinned. “You’re lucky there’s plenty of this beast to go around, you little thief.” A sound of pebbles being kicked across the stone floor had my head jerking around in time to see a dripping wet, nearly naked Varos coming into the room.

His body was a work of art. Even with the obvious pain he was experiencing along with the cuts and bruises that mottled his naturally tanned skin. As demons, our bodies don’t show weakness in the same way, so even though he has been obviously malnourished, and I was certain that his body would fill out more with the healing process, his physique was breathtaking.

His muscles flexed with each movement, his abdominals rigid as if etched into stone. The thin material of his pants clung to his thighs with the moisture from the pool. It was also easy to see his cock outlined as it moved with each shuffling step he took. I swallowed hard at the sudden burst of hunger that had nothing to do with food.

I quickly turned back to the fire, finding that it was quite difficult to tear my gaze away. I cleared my throat as he made his way closer and used the stone wall of the cave to slide back down into the same position he’d been in earlier.

“Here.” I shoved the meat that had finished cooking already in his direction without looking up. “I’ll have more ready soon.”

I received a grunt in response and felt the stick pulled from my hand. There were the sounds of teeth tearing at the only food we currently had. He let out a stifled moan as he chewed, and my gaze darted in his direction against my will. His eyes were closed and juices dripped down his chin. I could imagine that the expression he had on his face was the same if he were in the throes of ecstasy.

I bit back my own moan and shifted uncomfortably on the cold ground. Then, his words brought me back to reality.

“Tell me about my brothers.”