Dance with the Devil (Dark-Hunter #4)(33)
Author: Sherrilyn Kenyon

Thanatos could come crashing through the door at any moment to kill him, and if he had to die, he wanted one moment of happiness.

And she made him happy. In a way he’d never thought possible.

When he was with her, it seemed like something inside him wanted to fly. To laugh.

He was warm through and through.

"You know," she whispered. "I think I was wrong earlier. I think you have made me a nympho."

Zarek smiled at that and pulled his hand away from her so that he could open his fly and free himself from his pants. He shoved them down his legs, to his knees, but didn’t want to dislodge her to remove them completely.

He raised her up and then set her down on him.

They moaned in unison.

It was so erotic to watch her nak*d above him while he was still mostly dressed. He lifted his h*ps from the floor, thrusting himself deep inside her warmth while he ran his hands over her bare br**sts.

Astrid gasped at Zarek’s hardness inside her. She’d pushed his shirt up so that his hard, muscled stomach was bare, but he was still fully clothed. His leather pants brushed against her thighs with every move he made.

His hands left her.

A few seconds later, she felt his soft fur parka against her bare skin as he draped it around her.

"I don’t want you to get cold," he explained quietly.

She smiled at him, touched by his thoughtfulness. "How could I ever be cold with you inside me?"

He rose up then and wrapped his arms around her. His lips possessed hers with a fiery passion that left her breathless and weak.

Astrid cried out as she came in his arms.

Zarek waited until he’d wrung the last tremor of her orgasm from her before he sat up, still inside her and leaned her back against the floor.

Kissing her again, he quickened his thrusts, seeking his own peace.

And when he found it, he didn’t close his eyes. He stared down at the woman who had given it to him.

She lay beneath him, breathing raggedly, her eyes unseeing, her touch enchanting.

He knew then there was nothing he wouldn’t do for her. If she asked, he would walk through the fires of hell just to make her smile.

He cursed at the knowledge.

"Zarek?"

He ground his teeth as he pulled away from her. "What?"

She took his chin in her hand and turned his face toward hers, then she kissed him fiercely. "Don’t you dare turn away from me."

He couldn’t breathe as he felt her with every fiber of his being. Her bare bottom was wet against his groin, her skin cool against his.

But it was the warmth of her lips and breath that heated him.

The fire of her undaunted will. It burned through him, tearing away centuries of loneliness and pain.

" ‘You know-my flower,’" he breathed. " ‘I am responsible for her.’ " He kissed her gently. " ‘She doesn’t even have four thorns to protect herself from harm.’"

Astrid listened as he quoted from The Little Prince. "Why do you love that book so?" she asked.

"Because I want to hear the bells when I look up at the sky. I want to laugh, but I don’t know how."

Her lips quivered in sadness. That was the lesson of the book. It was to remind people that it was okay to care and that once you let someone into your heart, you were never really alone. Even the most simple thing such as looking up at the sky could bring comfort to you, even when the one you loved was far away. "And if I taught you to laugh?"

"I would be tamed."

"Would you? Or would you be the sheep who has a muzzle with no strap and who eats the rose when he’s not supposed to? I somehow think that even tamed, you would be beyond control."

Astrid felt the most remarkable thing then. Zarek’s lips curled up beneath her hand.

"Are you smiling?"

"I’m smiling, princess. But not broadly. No teeth."

"Or fangs?"

"Or fangs."

She leaned forward and kissed him again. "I’ll bet you’re gorgeous when you smile."

He grunted at that, then helped her dress.

Astrid snuggled up to him once more so that she could hear the rhythm of his heart. She loved the sound of it, the feel of his strength beneath her.

Even though their lives were in danger, she felt oddly safe here.

With him.

Or so she thought.

In the stillness, she heard a strange scratching sound above them.

Zarek jerked up.

"What is it?" she whispered.

"Someone’s upstairs in my cabin."

Horror consumed her. "You think it’s Thanatos?"

"Yes."

He moved her gently off him and stood her against the wall. Terrified, she remained perfectly still as she listened to his movements and to those above.

Zarek grabbed a grenade, then reconsidered. The last thing he wanted was to trap them underground. He pulled on his spare set of silver claws that covered every finger of his left hand, and moved down the hallway back toward the trapdoor that was underneath his stove.

He heard light footsteps above him.

Then a curse.

Suddenly, there was silence again.

Zarek strained, desperate to hear who was up there and what they were doing.

A strange shiver went down his spine as the air behind him stirred.

He turned expecting to see Astrid.

It wasn’t her.

Chapter 13

Standing behind him was an odd demonic woman with long blond hair, pointed ears, and large, batlike wings. She was cute in a very strange sort of way.

She stared at him without moving.

Zarek attacked.

Instead of fighting, she turned with a squeak and ran for the back of the cave.

Zarek followed her, intending to stop her before she reached Astrid, but he couldn’t.

The demon ran straight for her and to his astonishment she rushed behind Astrid and put her between them. The demon’s wings constricted and folded in around her body as if to protect her.

The demon placed a hand on Astrid’s shoulder as she eyed him cautiously. "Tell him to leave me alone, Astrid. Else I’ll have to barbecue him and make akri angry at me. I don’t want to make akri angry."

Astrid covered the demon’s hand with hers. "Simi? Is that you?"

"Yes. C’est moi. The little demon with hornays."

Zarek lowered his claws. "You two know each other?"

Astrid frowned as she faced him again. "Don’t you know her?"

"She’s a demon. Why would I know her?"

"Because she’s Acheron’s companion."

Completely stunned, Zarek gaped at the small creature who did have odd eyes much like Acheron’s. They were pale and glowing, but hers were rimmed with red. "Ash has a companion?"

The demon snorted. She stood up and whispered loudly in Astrid’s ear. "Dark-Hunters are cute, but very stupid."

He gave her a peeved glare as Astrid choked back a laugh.

"What are you doing here, Simi?" Astrid asked.

The demon looked around the tunnel and pouted in a way that reminded him of a small child. "Feeling peckish. Is there any food? Something not too heavy. Maybe a cow or two?"

"No, Simi," Astrid said. "No food."

The demon made a rude noise as she stepped away from Astrid. " ‘No, Simi. No food,’ " she mocked. "You sound like akri. ‘Don’t eat that, Simi, you’ll cause an ecological disaster.’ What is an ecological disaster, that’s what I want to know? Akri says it’s me on hunger binge, but I don’t think that’s quite right, but that’s all he’ll say about it."

Disregarding both of them, the demon began searching through his weapons.

She grabbed a grenade and tried to bite into it.

Zarek snatched it away from her. "That’s not food."

The demon opened her mouth as if to speak, then snapped it shut. "Why are you in a dark hole, Astrid? Did you fall?"

"We’re hiding, Simi."

"Hiding?" She snorted again. "From what?"

"Thanatos."

"Pffft…" The demon rolled her eyes and waved her hand dismissively. "Why you hiding from that loser? He wouldn’t even make good barbecue. Barely take the edge off my peckishness. Hmmm… How come there’s no food here?" She looked speculatively at Astrid.

Zarek stepped between them.

The demon stuck her tongue out at him and returned to searching his supplies.

"Why are you here?" Zarek asked.

The demon ignored him. "Where’s Sasha, Astrid? He’d make good barbecue. Something about that wolf meat. Very tasty once you get all that hair off. Barbecued hair not particularly tasty, but it’ll do in a pinch."

"He’s not here, thankfully. But why are you here without Acheron?"

"Akri told me to come."

"Who is akri?" Zarek asked.

Simi ignored him.

"Acheron," Astrid explained. "Akri is an Atlantean term for ‘lord and master.’"

He scoffed at that. "Well, la-di-da. No wonder he has such a big head, with a pet demon following him around, calling him ‘lord and master.’"

Astrid gave him an agitated look. "He’s not like that, Zarek, and you’d best not insult him around the Simi. She tends to take such things personally, and without Acheron here to call her off she’s deadlier than a nuclear bomb."

He looked over at the small demon with new respect. "Really?"

Astrid nodded. "Her race once held dominion over the entire earth. Even the Olympian gods were terrified of the Charontes, and only the Atlanteans were ever able to defeat and harness them."

Simi looked up and gave him a wide, toothy grin that revealed her fangs evilly. She licked her lips as if savoring some tasty morsel. "I would like to barbecue those Olympian gods. They are very tasty. One day, I’m going to eat that redheaded goddess, too."

"She doesn’t like Artemis," Astrid explained.

So he gathered.

"The Simi hates her, but akri says, ‘No, Simi, you can’t kill Artemis. Behave, Simi, don’t shoot fire at her, don’t make her bald, Simi.’ No, no, no. It’s all I hear."

She glared at Zarek meaningfully. "I don’t like that word. ‘No.’ It even sounds evil. The Simi tends to barbecue anyone dumb enough to say it to her. But not akri. He’s allowed to say no to me; I just don’t like it when he does."

Zarek frowned as he watched Simi hop along from box to box like a butterfly. She exclaimed giddily when she found his store of gold and jewels that Artemis paid him with every month.

"Look!" Simi said, scooping up a handful of diamonds. "You got sparklies like akri. He gives all of his to me." She held an emerald necklace up to her throat. "He say I look beautiful in sparklies, ‘specially them red ones that match my eyes. Here, Astrid," she said, bringing another necklace over to them and fastening it around Astrid’s neck.

"I know you can’t see it, Astrid, but it is very lovely, like you. You need to wear that and then you have sparklies, too." She looked up at Astrid’s head. "But still no hornays. We need to fix you up with hornays one day so you can be a demon, too. It’s fun being a demon-except when people try to exercise you… Wait, that’s not the right word. I forget, but you know what I mean."

There was something strangely charismatic about her, but she didn’t seem to be quite right… in more ways than one.

"Is she okay?" he asked Astrid. "I mean, no offense, she sounds more mental than I do."

Astrid laughed. "You have to remember that Acheron, shall we say, indulges her a lot and Simi’s not fully grown."

"Yes I am," Simi said in a tone that reminded him of a five-year-old child. She had a peculiar singsongy accent unlike anything he’d ever heard before.

"The Simi has needs," she continued idly. "Lots of needs. I need akri’s plastic card, for one thing. It very nice. People give me lots of stuff when I hand it to them. Ooo, I really like the new plastic card he gave me with my own name on it. It blue and all sparkly and it says Simi Parthenopaeus."

She looked up like a giddy child. "Doesn’t that have a nice ring to it? I have to say it again. Simi Parthenopaeus. I like that a lot. It even has my picture in the corner and I am a very attractive demon if I do say so myself. Akri says it, too. ‘Simi, you are beautiful.’ I like it when he tells me that."

"Does she always ramble on like this?" Zarek whispered under his breath in Astrid’s ear.

She nodded. "Trust me, it’s wise to let her ramble, too. She gets rather upset if you tell her to be quiet. She once ate a lesser god who did that."

Simi cocked her head as if another thought came to her addled mind. "And I particularly like men all of a sudden." She looked over at Zarek who involuntarily cringed. "But not that one. He’s too dark. I like them blue-eyed people ’cause they remind me of my card. People like that Calvin Klein model Travis Fimmel who was on this big billboard in New York the last time akri took me there. He mighty fine and makes me want to do things to him other than flame-broil him. He makes me all warm and tingly."

"Okay, Simi. Warm and tingly. I think we need to switch topics," Astrid said.

Zarek wasn’t sure if he should feel relieved or insulted by her comments about him. But he definitely agreed a change in topic would be nice.

Astrid turned to where she thought Simi might be, but Simi had already moved.