His wound still ached, but that wasn’t what angered him. It was the games Erish played, using people’s lives as her pawns. “If you weren’t Ambrose’s consort, I’d rip you in half.”
“If that’s what it will take to get your hands on me…” She crossed her arms, pouting over Alice’s corpse. “Don’t be angry with me. I only killed her because she made me jealous. You’re the perfect match for me. As an incubus, your abilities as a lover are legendary, but you’re human enough for me to feed from. You should lead Lilinor, not Ambrose. I know you mute your abilities around others. You are capable of terrifying power. I know your lineage, Caine Mountfort.”
In her breathtaking coldness, he recognized a glimmer of himself. This was the awful truth about demons like them—they reveled in death.
Still, that thought didn’t stop him from seething with fury, and he had to restrain himself from ripping her heart out. “Get out of here, Erish.”
“You and I are the same, Caine.” She pulled open her black dress, standing naked before him. Even through his wrath, he couldn’t stop his eyes from lingering over her perfect golden skin, taking in each of her curves. There was a reason men had started wars over Erish, why the citizens of ancient Ur had worshipped her as a goddess.
She stepped over Alice’s body, fixing her amber eyes on him. When she stood just inches from him, she reached down, pulling a blade from his belt.
“Like I said, you and I are the same, Caine.” Her fingers stroked the hilt, entrancing him with each of her delicate movements. “If we don’t enslave humans, they’ll enslave us. You should know that better than anyone. But you and I were born to control them with our divine beauty. Like this fine blade of yours, we bring them elegance and death, all in one sublime gift. It’s better than the ugly, fetid death most human bodies endure, festering from cancers or diseased hearts.”
She slid the blade back into its scabbard, and her fingers lingered over his thighs. “Humans are meant to serve us. And when they defy us, we will slaughter them like the animals they are. I know what Ambrose has planned with the two human females, and I don’t like it. We don’t need their help.”
Her hand slid up his chest and curled around the back of his neck. Her breath warmed his throat.
“I’m half-human,” he reminded her. “Does that make me half-animal?”
“Your demon side is so much stronger. You just need to overcome your humanity. I know slaughter secretly thrills you. You crave complete control over humans. Unlike the vampires, you and I can walk in the light, and with the blood that flows through your veins… You deserve to rule this city, and the other kingdoms of night.”
“I have no desire to sit in a throne room, wearing a crown.” Not only was he standing here with Ambrose’s naked consort, thinking about running his hands over her hips, but now he was listening to treason, too. He forced himself to think of how succubi looked before they fed—like withered hags. He tore his eyes away from Erish to stare at the broken corpse on his floor. At the sight of the girl’s slackened jaw, the lust flowed right out of him.
He pulled Erish’s hands off him. Part of him wanted to fling her across the room, but he knew better than to provoke her rage.
“I’m loyal to Ambrose. Without him, I’d be dead.” If she thought she could make him into her toy the way she wanted to enslave humans, she was gravely mistaken. “That is the last time I will indulge one of your jealous rages, Erish. And I will not permit a traitor to remain by Ambrose’s side.”
Pink tinged her cheeks. “Do not threaten me, Caine. You belong to me. You don’t need these human twins, and they are not your equals. I know the temptations that humans hold for incubi, but if you take one of them as your lover, you can expect her to die a long, slow death at my hands. Are we clear?”
What the hells was she talking about? “Erish.” You raving lunatic. “I could not conceive of a less likely scenario. I want nothing to do with them.” He shoved her away and stepped over Alice’s corpse to stalk through the halls of Ninlil.
His chest still throbbed with hunger for the touch of a human woman.
CHAPTER 4
Rain soaked Caine’s clothes as he stalked across the Thorndike campus, cloaked by invisibility. Yellow streetlights dazzled off the puddles in front of the old Victorian houses, and rhythmic music pulsed through the frat house walls.
As he skulked past the rickety houses, he tried to forget the image of Alice’s broken corpse on his floor. He wasn’t sure what bothered him more—that Erish had murdered an innocent woman right in front of him, or that she’d forced him to stand by and watch, helplessly, for the second time that day.