Chapter 27

Iyla

WHEN FRIDAY ROLLED AROUND, ZAGAN was eager to let loose, and for once, I was excited about that prospect, too. Since the meeting with my advisor, I’d spent the past week attending my classes to finish out the semester while also planning for my music courses with my new advisor. I’d gathered all the material I’d need to start re-learning the piano, and each step that brought me closer to that dream made the next step easier.

Except for one.

I hadn’t actually begun playing again. I’d made it to the doorway of Zagan’s ballroom, but as soon as my gaze locked onto the piano, my heart began to pound and the cold claws of my mom’s demands wrapped around me, forcing me to turn around. I’d fight past her hold one day.

That day just wasn’t today .

Zagan had also been busy this past week. I’d had the mansion all to myself while he and Coldin met the other members of the band in New York. They had some filming to do for a couple programs, and they sat down to announce their hiatus to their fans. I’d watched the livestream where they’d talked about it, and the chat had flooded with an outpouring of love, support, and sadness. People were already counting down the days until they returned from their break.

It had been a bit lonely in the big house without Zagan there, so I’d had Nahla, Iseul, Addie, and Eden come over a few times. Now with Friday night here, we were taking the chance to let off some steam by meeting the rest of Sinners Do It Better at Hell’s Gate.

Was I excited to have some fun? Yes.

Was I eager to get back to the morbid and dark decor of the place? Not particularly.

I ran my hands down the length of my knee-high red dress. Two thin straps held the dress up on each shoulder, and the material hugged every curve and dipped low to show off an ample amount of cleavage. I’d thrown my hair up into a high ponytail and applied just a dusting of makeup.

While looking like this in the past would’ve made me feel guilty—like dressing up meant I was doing something wrong—I felt good in my own skin today. It was a new feeling, but I liked it. I hoped this same sort of confidence followed me as I started my journey toward my new life.

The other members of Sinners Do It Better and Eden were already gathered at a spacious table near the dance floor, throwing back shots and smoking something that had a pink haze of smoke lingering in the air.

Dante was the first to spot us. He narrowed his eyes when he saw me, but they quickly slid to Zagan and lost their hostility. “Looks like our boy made it.”

“And he brought wifey,” Xander hollered, his gold eyes trailing down my body.

Eden giggled and slapped Xander on the arm.

My eyes widened at the name, and I looked sideways at Zagan. “‘Wifey?’” I whispered, my voice coming out almost like a squeak.

Zagan rolled his eyes and scowled at Xander. “Ignore him. It’s a joke they came up with because we live together.”

I nodded slowly, but the heat didn’t leave my cheeks. They were teasing Zagan about me being his wife? The mere thought had my heart stampeding for some odd reason. It wasn’t like I really was or was even close to anything like that. He and I were just friends.

Friends who had sex.

And now lived together.

I chewed the inside of my lip to keep the embarrassment from completely overtaking my face. My gaze, seeking somewhere to go, found Dante’s. His red-and-black eyes were trained on me once more, and they were cold, narrowed slits. The look made my skin crawl, and I stepped just a hair closer into Zagan.

“D-Did I do something wrong?” I whispered to Zagan, turning my body away from the table to appear like I was taking in the club. “Dante seems mad at me or something.”

Zagan waved a dismissive clawed hand and kept the other firmly on my back. “You didn’t do anything. Like I said, the guys have been making stupid jokes lately, and they put him in a bad mood.”

I could understand being grouchy, but it felt like that grouchiness was directed at me, as if I were the one who’d made the teasing remarks that pissed him off. Still, I accepted Zagan’s answer, and we turned back to the table.

“Iyla,” Eden chirped. She gestured at the empty seat across from her and Perseus. “Come sit here.”

Happy to have the bright-eyed demon here, I went over to the free seat and sank down. Zagan took the chair at the head of the table between Coldin and Dante. I glanced warily at Perseus directly across from me and Xander on my left. Dante, who sat to my right, ignored me as he started talking to Zagan about some book he was reading, but even so, I could feel the tension rolling off him in my direction. It didn’t take a genius to know that he didn’t seem to want me here, but I wasn’t sure what I’d done to offend him.

“So, Iyla,” Xander began with amusement glittering in his gold demon eyes. His tall-and-thin horns jutted up into the air from both the shaved and dark-haired sides of his head.

I’d learned in my time with the demons that you could tell the many different kinds apart by their horns and eyes. Incubi and Succubi, like Zagan, Perseus, and Dante, had black eyes with a red vertical slit in the center, as well as rather short black horns. Mischief demons, like Xander and Eden, had gold eyes with gazelle-style black horns. And then there was Coldin’s kind of demon, one I still didn’t know much about. They had thick, curved black horns like a ram, and their eyes were solid black with orange flames dancing in the center. Even now, seeing his eyes unnerved me a bit.

“You’re living with our leader now,” Xander finished.

I shifted in my seat under the obvious appraisal of his gaze. “Looks like it. My living situation … got messed up, and he was kind enough to let me stay with him.”

Eden rested her chin in her hands and listened to me with a smile plastered on.

Perseus scoffed before chugging some of the amber drink in his glass. “‘Kind.’ Right.” Perseus leaned forward on his forearms and met my gaze. “If we do something, it’s for selfish reasons. It’s not out of kindness .”

Eden’s smile fell, and she quickly slapped his arm and glowered at him. The two started bickering in hushed voices, too low for me to make out. I didn’t bother trying to listen. I was too caught up in my own irritation.

Perseus was wrong—maybe not in the general sense, but definitely when it came to Zagan. Zagan had done countless things for me. He helped me study, dropped what he was doing to be there for me, brought me heaps of cake, spent his free time with me and Gemma, and let me live with him. Even if some of his motivations stemmed from other reasons, Zagan did them because he was a good friend. The fact that Perseus didn’t understand that made me wonder how well his bandmates really knew him or if they just saw another demon when they looked at him.

I glanced over at Zagan now. He ran a clawed, black finger around the rim of his glass as he listened to Dante talk. The sight of him made warmth unfurl in my chest, and that feeling washed over me from head to toe.

Everyone at this table saw his horns, his eyes, and everything that made him a demon. When I looked at him, I saw what made him Zagan . I saw someone who managed to always turn a bad situation into a brighter one. I saw a man passionate about his work but also struggling to find that spark. I saw a person who cared and supported me when he didn’t have to. I saw a friend.

Friend.

The word had a snake-like grip coiling around my ribcage and squeezing.

Eden, in her pink bra and black leather shorts, stood then. She held her hand out for me and called, “Come on, Iyla! Let’s go dance.”

I let the giddy demon pull me onto the dance floor, and with little convincing, the two of us began to sway our hips and move to the music. Every set of eyes watched Eden with a sensual hunger, and I didn’t blame them. The way she moved was hot, and I could only hope that I looked even half as good as she did while dancing beside her.

“That’s it!” Eden cheered me on. “Keep dancing like that and—” Her eyes narrowed as they zeroed in on our table, and her erotic movements slowed to a mindless sway. “Shit.”

I slowed, too, nearly stopping altogether as I turned to see what had caught her attention. I sucked in a sharp breath when I saw the scantily-clad red-head sitting in Zagan’s lap, her blood-red nail trailing down his neck while the other pressed to his chest. Her gleaming violet eyes held his as she shared words with him, and her black horns curled behind her head. Zagan’s face was unreadable as he listened to whatever she said, and he sat still against her roaming hands.

It wasn’t the first time I’d seen someone in his lap like that. My first night here, Eden had literally been straddling him topless . But it hadn’t fazed me then. I didn’t know Zagan back then. I didn’t …

This time was different. My stomach soured to the point of near nausea as the well-endowed woman smiled seductively at Zagan and leaned down to run her tongue over his ear.

I quickly whipped my head back around and choked out, “Who is that?”

Eden continued glaring in that direction. “That’s Babette. She’s a Bargainer demon and the owner of Hell’s Gate. She’s also been obsessed with Zagan since the dawn of time.”

There was clearly a part of me that took pleasure in torturing myself, because I looked back. Babette now stood by Zagan’s chair, and she leaned down, her breasts nearly spilling from her green dress, and whispered something in his ear. She stood back to her full, slender height. Zagan’s eyes stayed trained on the table as she sauntered away, leaving demons drooling in her wake.

Nagging voices inside me wondered what she’d said to him. Had she asked him to slip away with her for their own little fun? Did he only decline because he had no choice, chained to me like a dog that craved freedom? The chaotic questions fired off inside my mind, and the knots in my stomach only got worse with each one.

Zagan’s head started to swivel in my direction, so I quickly looked away with a sharp inhale. I couldn’t let him see me watching. It wasn’t my business, bond or no bond.

“If you’re trying to hide your feelings, you’re not doing a good job,” Eden said, leaning in close to be heard over the music. “It’s written all over your face. If you really want to act like you didn’t see or didn’t care, dance . Show everyone just how okay you are with your body.”

She backed away, raising her arms above her head as her body began to move in a rhythmic, hypnotic dance. I swallowed down the unease inside me and tried to do what she said. I’d never considered myself sexy or a very skilled dancer, but right now, I was giving both things my all. I swiveled my hips and ran my hands up my body and into my ponytail, letting the music and sudden whistles of approval fuel my slow and erotic movements.

I’m not fazed by the woman flirting with Zagan.

I closed my eyes and made a figure-eight with my hips.

I don’t care if he wishes he weren’t stuck with me.

I ran my hands back down my body and let the music thrum through my limbs.

I’m fine.

“Back that pretty ass up,” a raspy voice whispered in my ear.

I gasped and spun around to find a Mischief demon smiling salaciously at me. His dirty-blond hair stood up around his tall black horns, and sweat shined on his bare torso. He danced closer and reached for my hands to pull me into him.

“What’s a tasty human like you doing out here all alone?” he chuckled, his golden eyes raking over me.

My heart thundered, and unease prickled my skin. It was times like this that I remembered who I was and what exactly filled this room. I was prey, and I stood face-to-face with a predator. Though, this one only seemed interested in dancing as he pressed into my front and grinded to the beat.

I glanced at our table to see what Zagan made of the demon trying to dance with me. But he wasn’t watching. He’d turned in his seat to stare after the Bargainer demon, who kept throwing teasing smiles over her shoulder at him. It was an invitation to follow her up the stairs.

My stomach soured, and I quickly turned back to the demon in front of me. It didn’t matter if Zagan was interested in Babette. I didn’t care one bit that he wanted to go after her. In fact, I didn’t care so much that I held my head higher and flashed a coy smile at my new partner.

“What does it look like I’m doing here?” I finally fired back. I swayed my hips and grabbed the belt loops of his pants to pull him flush against me.

His grin widened, and he licked his lips, almost like he was hungry and eager to taste me. He pressed in and held my waist as the two of us moved to the pulsing music. Dancing with this stranger wasn’t like dancing with Zagan. There was no rush of excitement or desire for more. No flip in my stomach, no pulse racing under my skin, no itch to get even closer and breathe him in until I was drunk on his smell.

But he was here, and Zagan wasn’t.

A fact I was reminded of when I looked up and saw gold eyes and a lopsided grin without piercings. The tattoo-free hands skimming across my body to grope my butt and brush across my breast didn’t encite sweet electricity, but rather, annoyance. I was irritated that this stranger thought he could touch me like that, and I was even more aggravated with myself for comparing everything about this demon to my demon.

Not wanting to stare at this stranger, I turned in his arms to dance on him with my backside, and there was no missing the feel of his erection against my butt—something that really didn’t send sparks flying inside me like it would’ve with Zagan.

There was a gasp from right behind me and a split second where the body at my back disappeared. Just as quickly as it vanished, a new firm torso pressed into my back, and two large hands gripped the skin of my bare thighs. Spice and warm cedar wrapped around me, and I knew without looking over my shoulder who now held me.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, letting another demon touch what’s mine?” Zagan demanded in a low, husky voice.

A shiver ran up my spine with his hard body pressing into my backside and his lips hovering over my ear. My heart was back in my throat as his hands moved from the sides of my bare thighs to the front of them, brushing over the short hem of my dress.

“You didn’t seem to mind,” I said, my voice coming out shaky with that lingering tension still pooled in my gut.

Seeing Babette seek him out had clearly jarred me more than I cared to admit.

“Tell that to the ashes of the demon who’d just been touching you,” he chuckled darkly.

My eyes widened, and I looked down, seeing a heavy dusting of ash beneath our feet. Shock shot through me at a blinding speed when I realized Zagan had killed him, but more than that came a hot, intense swell of desire. It was such a strange reaction to a really fucked-up thing, yet there was no denying how turned on I was.

All because Zagan had killed a demon out of jealousy.

Over me .

It spurred my body to resume my hypnotic dance moves, swaying my hips and rolling my body against Zagan’s.

He groaned and pressed his hard cock against my backside. “You’re fucking killing me, Sparrow. I’m supposed to be the temptation, not you.”

Zagan’s lip rings teased the skin on my earlobe. He nipped me lightly and dug his claws into my thighs, just hard enough to elicit a small sting that quickly mingled with the hungry awareness pulsing between my legs.

“Yet here you are, calling to me like the sweetest, sexiest sin,” he purred.

“Is that right?” I asked breathlessly.

I bit my lip and leaned my head back onto his chest. I didn’t stop dancing, and he didn’t try to make me. He moved with me, grinding against me and moving with the swivel of my hips to the pounding music. Every inch of me was blissfully aware of every inch of him.

It also served as a reminder that these same places had just been touched by Babette, and that twist of nausea flooded back, spurring my tongue to move on its own accord. “Who was your friend?”

I hated this sickening coil in my gut. I’d never felt like this, and I didn’t know how to make the feeling go away.

Zagan trailed one hand up my body and over my breast until he gripped my neck. He tilted it back until I had to look at him over my shoulder. A smirk tugged on his pierced lips. “Is that jealousy I hear?”

Was that what that bitter churning was? Jealousy?

“No,” I answered quickly— too quickly.

He chuckled and brought his mouth closer to mine. It whispered against my lips as he purred, “I only have interest in one body, Sparrow.”

My heart stuttered. His words filled my veins with fire, warming me from the inside out. Until reality doused it in water.

Of course, he only had interest in me. I was his bond. He didn’t have a choice. Otherwise, he probably would’ve followed that gorgeous red-head to fool around.

“Because I’m your bond?” I asked finally, voicing the burning thoughts in my head, though my voice came out meeker than I’d intended.

His black-and-red eyes searched mine. “What if I said yes?”

Something sharp, like tiny crystals of frost, encrusted my insides, but I ignored it. Feigning indifference, I shrugged.

His hold on my neck tightened, and he forced my head down so that I had to stare at the scattering remains beneath my feet. His whisper teased my ear. “And what if I said no?”

I froze, no longer hearing the music or the voices of people around us. All that remained was Zagan and me.

He trailed one hand under the hem of my skirt. His fingers brushed against my bare wet core while the other ran down my throat to grip my breast through the thin red dress. “What if I said it’s because I love the way you taste?”

My eyes fluttered closed, and I reached my arms behind me to grip his bent head as his fingers rubbed along the seam of my folds and his palm squeezed my breast.

In the back of my mind, I knew where we were. I know there were hundreds of demons and eyes all around us, but I couldn’t find it in myself to give a damn. The bitterness that had enveloped me when I saw him with Babette eased with each second his hands were on me. Maybe being claimed so publicly like this was exactly what I needed right now to make the unfamiliar sting go away completely.

“What if I said it’s because I love the way your pussy squeezes my cock?”

I inhaled sharply as pleasure zipped up my spine and made my legs quake. His finger slicked between my folds and rubbed on my clit, and I gasped, the sound lost in the loud music. A breeze hit my pussy, making me astutely aware that my dress had ridden up enough for people to see every detail. While I liked having him touch me in the middle of the bustling club, I wasn’t brave enough to let people see my naked parts.

Seeming to sense my hesitation, Zagan released my breast and removed his hand from under my dress. He grabbed my arm and spun me around so that my chest pressed to his torso. He smiled down at me and wound my arms around his neck. Without warning, he hoisted me into his arms and wrapped my legs around his waist, pressing my bare and aching clit right against the bulge in his pants.

He brushed his lips across my jawline, teasing me with their soft caress. The graze of his lip rings made me grind against him, hungry for all of him. “What if I said it’s because you’re beautiful, and taking my eyes off you is impossible?”

Emotion tightened my throat in a vice-like grip as he punctuated his words by meeting my gaze again. I searched his face for some sign that he was teasing but found none.

I’d never given much thought to whether I was beautiful or not. All I cared about was looking clean and classy like Mom had raised me to be. Zagan calling me beautiful was pure sunshine raining down on me. I soaked up the complement and all the warmth it created inside me.

I tightened my hold around his neck. “What if I said that would make me happy?”

The corner of his mouth rose. “That’s all I want, Sparrow.”

His lips found mine, and a sweet heat swelled inside me as his tongue teased my own. My grip pulled him closer, and I angled my head to deepen the kiss. The hands holding me up shifted so that he held me with one hand and undid his pants with the other.

He nibbled my lip before sweeping his tongue back inside my mouth. At the same moment, his dick plunged inside of me with a delicious burn. I moaned into his parted lips, and he swallowed the sound with another hungry kiss as he gripped my butt to pull out then shove back in.

People continued dancing around us, completely unfazed as Zagan held me to him and fucked me right there on the dance floor. I wasn’t sure if it was because this kind of thing was normal here, but I didn’t care at the moment. My every thought was zeroed in on the demon that kissed me with the hunger of a starving man. Pleasure hit me hard and deep with each plunge of his cock, and I felt myself clamp around him. He managed to touch dizzying places inside me that were downright sinful, and I leaned my head back as I chased that blinding heat.

“So fucking good,” Zagan moaned against my throat. His tongue ran from my collar bone, up my neck, and to the tip of my chin. His sharp canines grazed my skin, making it pebble with heedy desire. “You’re so fucking good, Iyla.”

“More, Zagan,” I gasped, leaning down to press my lips to his. “Please!”

His grip on my ass tightened, and he met my request with hard, almost desperate thrusts. My eyes rolled back into my head, and my entire body began to shake. Waves of electric bliss shot through me and ended right where his dick pushed in and out. One of his hands suddenly reached between us, and with the skill of a sex master, he immediately found my clit and pinched.

A scream that was all pleasure tore from my lips as my orgasm burst free, turning my cobra-like grip into limp noodles. Stars burst behind my eyelids, and for a second, I lost all sense of where I was.

When I got a hold of my bearings again, I was still firmly in Zagan’s arms, my legs wrapped around him and my head pressed to his shoulder. I breathed hard, and my heart practically ran a marathon. Zagan’s cock slipped free of me then, and I whimpered at the sudden loss. With a quick movement, he got himself tucked away, and he slowly set me back on my feet.

I wobbled on my jelly-like legs, but he kept his arms around me to hold me up. Something wet dripped down my inner thighs, and I had no idea which of us that was from.

I started to pull away and looked up at him. “I think I need to go clean up.”

“Hell no,” he said, running his hands around my frame to rest on my hips. “You’re gonna stay out here and dance with me while my cum runs down those pretty legs. I want anyone who didn’t see me fuck you to see the evidence of it and know you’re mine. Maybe then they’ll know not to fucking touch you again.”

Something inside me warmed at the fierce possessiveness in his voice, and even though the wet, sticky cum felt weird being left to drip down my legs, having his attention fixed on it made it worth it. So I did as I was told. I wrapped my arms around his neck and resumed the sensual dancing that we’d paused in order to fuck. All the earlier jealousy I’d felt had completely dissolved. All that remained now was the heedy, fluttering I always got when Zagan looked at me. I still wasn’t sure what it meant or what I really felt, but that was fine. I didn’t need to know. Having him here was enough.