September Moon (Alexa O'Brien, Huntress #8)

I went for her throat while she clung to me in a mesmerized state of arousal and oblivion. The euphoria held me in its grasp, taking me to heights I never wanted to come down from.

Shya put a quick end to that. He grabbed my hair and violently flung me off the woman. To keep me from going at her again, he surrounded her with an energy circle.

Wiping blood from my chin, I glared daggers at him. I was still riding the high, and it was difficult to concentrate on reality after having been so brutally brought back to it.

At Shya’s command, two demons from the pool orgy came forward to fetch the injured woman. They carried her off, into the house. I watched her go, feeling strangely detached.

“At least I got something out of you,” Shya sneered. “As long as I’ve got you here, I’m going to take you for everything I can.” He extended a hand, pointing at Arys across the yard. “Arys, please join your wolf and I at the fire.”

Shya’s wings flared with a loud snap that hurt my ears. The demons holding Arys released him. Many of them had ceased to pay attention to us. They were all engrossed in their sin of choice.

Arys swept me into his arms and buried his face in my hair. “I’m not leaving you again. I don’t care how dangerous it is to be together. It’s more dangerous to be apart.”

Senses heightened from the feed, my emotions were on overdrive. I held onto Arys as if he were my lifeline, which in many ways he was. I concentrated on the way he felt pressed against me and the sound of his devotion as he murmured in my ear. Just in case we were parted, I needed to memorize these details.

“There will be time for the dramatic lovers’ reunion later. If you don’t somehow find a way to fuck up what happens next.” Radiating condescension, Shya turned his back on us and stalked over to the fire, forcing us to follow or risk his wrath.

He stood outside the pentagram of fire. He motioned for us to stand beside him, which we did, albeit with great suspicion. A few demons gathered around the exterior of the large circle.

A glance back toward the pool revealed Falon preventing a hotheaded Gabriel from joining us. Good call. Whatever Shya had planned, there was no way a newbie vampire with power like Gabriel’s could handle it.

“Don’t enter the circle. And don’t speak to the demon I’m about to summon, even if he speaks to you.” Shya held out a hand and a dagger appeared, laid across his palm. It was the same blade he’d used to hack off a lock of my hair and bleed me while I lay paralyzed in my bed. I’d recognize the dragon etched into the blade anywhere.

Arys stood between Shya and me, keeping as safe a distance between us all as possible. I held tight to his hand, refusing to let him go. His presence was empowering, filling me with a sense of completeness I never knew I was missing until we were together.

My heart pounded when Shya began to chant. The language he used was unrecognizable. It sounded ancient, certainly not a language still in use. He tossed in a powdery substance, and the man tied in the center began to tremble. It soon became an uncontrollable shake.

Shya extended the dagger to me, hilt first. “If you don’t mind, Alexa. Just a few drops to invoke the summons.”

With eyebrows raised, I smiled nervously. “You’ve got to be kidding me. What’s the catch?”

“No catch. Not this time. You’re safe on this side of the circle. He’s the sacrifice.” Shya pointed at the bound man and continued to thrust the dagger at me. “I need mortal blood. Yours is guaranteed to get some attention. You have my word that you will be safe.”

This didn’t feel right. Everything in me resisted. I would not assist in sacrificing this man. “No,” I said with stubborn refusal. “I’m not helping you hurt anyone.”

“Don’t say I didn’t try to be nice about it,” Shya snapped. He shoved by Arys and grabbed my hand. Holding it out over the flames, he slid the blade over my palm. “Whatever you’re thinking, Arys, don’t even try it.”

Shya shook a few drops of my blood into the fire and released me. I jerked back, retreating from the pentagram, afraid to be too close. The scent of sulfur was immediate. I coughed as the thick odor irritated my lungs. Yellow smoke clouded the circle. It seemed to be contained, unable to seep beyond the border, but I still had to hold my breath against the sickening stench. When the smoke cleared, I almost dropped into a dead faint.

The demon standing inside the circle was easily one of the most horrific things I’d ever seen. It had a man’s body, well built with thick muscles that bulged and rippled. Black wings like Shya’s spread out from its back. However, it had the head of a goat atop that perfectly sculpted body. Blinking near black goat eyes at us, it looked us each over in turn. And then it spoke.