The Company of Fiends (Tempting Monsters, #2)

by Kathryn Moon

"They won't feel our loss if they can't walk through the doors. No, you have the right of it. Make them weep with us. Make them remember Bethie by her absence under that spotlight. We are nothing if we aren't being watched by that audience, Nix."

My hands clenched in my lap, gripping fiercely around the fabric of my dress as I stared back at Mr. Reddy. The words unsettled me, but only because they rang with truth. No part of my life felt as vivid as when I was on stage. At least until last night.

"He's a demon. Folks call him the Gemini," Reddy said with a roll of his eyes and a shrug. His jaw ground briefly, and then he returned my stare. "He's not a good match for the other girls, Nix. Not…safe." I'd been partnered with plenty of monsters that Reddy knew wouldn't work well with other girls. Some were too big. Some too rough. He'd never told me they weren't safe.

"I mean he's going to hurt you, Hazel," Reddy said. "I don't know how, but I do know that. It was all I could find out." I licked my lips and found myself unable to look away from Mr. Reddy. "You're not talking about flogging or stockades."

"You'll be safe. That's all I can promise," Mr. Reddy said, and I heard the strain, saw the fold of his brow and the nervous tap of his fingers. He didn't like this. He didn't want this act for me, or for anyone else. Hazel can handle it, he had said to Myra. Could I? Maybe at one point. A year or two ago, even. Myra was right—I was tired. And now with Beth in my mind, I was a little frightened too.

"You mean I'll survive," I said. Mr. Reddy's lips pressed flat and white, and that apology on his face was buried under a hard determination. "Don't be dramatic. You're the only one I can ask. Maybe, if I swap Alexa and Evie every other night."

I closed my eyes, and all I could see was a brilliant spotlight glowing down on me like a sun in a black sky, warming my cheeks. The rushing hush of a crowd breathing, waiting, needing me pounded in my ears. I opened my eyes, and there was Mr. Reddy again, in his dark office, watching me with a sympathetic frown on his lips, knowing I wouldn't refuse. I wouldn't leave. "All right. I'll do it," I said.

A warm arm stretched over my shoulder, and I twitched with an impulse to pull away. It faded quickly and I sat up, Ronan's eyes widening as I moved only to sit myself down in his lap. "Not particularly," I whispered, twisting and bundling myself against Ronan's warm chest. His arms wrapped around me, and then his wings too, shielding me in a lovely dark cocoon.

He was striking, with broad and gently twisting horns, and his body wasn't spiky and bright like Eston, but it also wasn't correctly proportioned to be mistaken for human, limbs a little too long. His eyes reflected the faint stage lights we were using, and his body moved in disjointed jerks and twitches. But when his chin lifted, there was an elegance to him, an uncanny beauty and faintly violet shifting glow under velvety bronze skin. "This is Constantine," Myra said, inching away from the new arrival as I approached the stage, aware of Ronan following me.

He bowed, and those eerie animal eyes remained fastened to me as I approached, glinting and glowing, never blinking. I stiffened, trying to suppress an involuntary shiver at the predatory interest in that stare. I wasn't sure if it was the abrupt motions of his body or the uninterrupted focus, but his gaze didn't feel like the sexual energy I was used to.

I took a slow breath and when I reached the stage, Constantine bent, long arms reaching down and slender but strong hands wrapping around my waist. There was a charge of energy rushing through me at his touch, but he lifted me from the floor and onto the stage with no effort. Up close, his bone structure was even more unusual, cheekbones too high and jaw too broad. His grip was firm but not painful around my waist, and yet it was as if he'd fastened me in place by fierce pins and I would be unable to move on my own again until released.

"You're a pretty creature," Constantine said, and the words were carefully spoken and somehow didn't fit together. "Thank you, sir," I answered, but I couldn't find my usual charm as those metallic eyes flicked over me.

I'd had sex with any number of unusual monsters during my time at the theater, some quite impossible to imagine the act with, but none had unsettled me like this demon. I wished Mr. Reddy hadn't warned me, but even so,...

"Her name is Hazel," Nireas snapped. Creature. Between the word and Constantine's focus, a little bubble of panic rose up in my throat. Did he know? Mr. Reddy wouldn't have told, surely. He relied on my disguise, on the human girl monsters paid to watch. And yet… "Yes," I said, nodding and reaching trembling hands down to those immovable fingers.

I stumbled back as two faces became two figures, equally tall but unevenly matched. One was a deep, rich blue, those metallic eyes matching the shimmer of his skin, but his nose led to a disconcerting blank place where the mouth should've been. On the other figure, those glinting eyes were missing, but full lips remained on vibrant red skin. The strange collection of clothes also seemed to have been dispersed between the two figures, the red figure dressed in soft, draping fabrics, the blue one in sharply tailored wool. "Gemini," I whispered. "He is Con," the red lips spoke. "I am Antin."

"Do you like pain, sweet creature?" I swallowed, staring between the pair of them, thinking of Hunter's strength the night before. "A little," I breathed, stepping back again, making Con's gaze snap back to me, his body freezing in place once more. "The act will be more than a little pain," Antin mused, head tipping. "But I will be there with you."

It was a sudden current, outshining every point of reference I had. Hotter than the burning iron handle of a pan I'd grabbed bare-handed, deeper than the broken bone of my arm when I'd fallen from a ladder, sharper than the claws of a dragon that had raked down my back in accidental passion. I couldn't scream because I couldn't breathe. Surely no one could survive this pain. This was a hell of a thousand knives and the strike of lightning, and yet there was nothing to feel at all because it was too strong.

"We will start gently with you," he said. A tear slipped out of the corner of my eye at the words, in devastation and gratitude. If this was gentle, I would not conquer rough. Con's single touch at the back of my knee rendered me both weak and vibrating with the need to escape. It was one long resonance of stabbing versus the sweet and velvety-soft waves of relief Antin provided. But Antin touched me twice for Con's single point of contact. They were being merciful.

Antin's hand on my chest was moving my dress down my shoulders and his lips grazed my cheek, drawing a shudder through my body, my back arching into the careful pass of his fingers, aware of what they promised. Con's hand drifted up beneath my skirt, grazing the insides of my thigh, and my eyes widened as an unexpected and potent arousal pooled in my cunt. The shock of the initial pain was transforming from a stab to a heavy pound, a profane ache that I associated with the frenzied height of fucking.

I screamed behind Antin's hand on my mouth at the sudden bolt of electric torment throbbing through my cunt, hips kicking and breath snapping through my chest with every one of those brushing touches. Then Antin ducked down again, hand moving away and lips just barely landing against mine, and the pain fused with an ecstasy so sweet it made me sob into the kiss.

I came, weeping and shaking on the bed, my arms reaching up to cling to Antin. I found his skin under the swathes of fabric and moaned at the sudden rush of delirious pleasure, and then cried out into his lips as a long digit pressed up inside of me, violent only in the sensations it drew out of me. This was horrible and it was a gift, and it was only a kiss and one finger pumping carefully into me. I was terrified, and I needed to know more.

I opened my mouth immediately, and Antin smiled. The leather was thick and pliable as Antin placed it between my teeth. It wasn't the first time I'd had leather in my mouth, but it was the first time I shook and shivered as I bit down, the flavor heady and musky and unpleasant. I yelped as Con moved to the bed, barely touching me as he yanked down my dress, exposing my breasts to the cool air of the room. I stared up and his animal eyes were on mine, impossible to escape, a wild excitement in his gaze.

Antin knelt between my thighs, and unlike Con, he had no reservations about touching me fully as he pushed my skirt up to my waist. His hands on my thighs set off a sudden explosion of bliss inside me, and my hips lifted from the bed, arching toward him, my eyes fluttering shut as I moaned around the leather, ignoring the taste in favor of having something to suck.

I was at the edge of coming when fingers dove into my hair, scratching against my scalp. The deep, dense wave of simple pleasure was split with the momentary knife stab of pain from Con's touch, and my scream was strangled. But Antin had two hands for Con's one on me, and I was learning quickly that the pain was just a lightning rod of sensation t...

Antin's hands pushed at my shaking thighs, and my face was hot, eyes open and fastened to Con's stare as I came with a gush, exposed and pinned between their demonic pow...

Eston came suddenly to mind, pretty and clumsy and simple, and I let out a crazed giggle, comparing him to Constantine. This was power, horrible and beautiful, unlike any belonging to the demons I'd met before. I was writhing between the...

I swallowed my cry as I stretched and leaned into Con's hand at the top of my head, my whole body tensing as the cut of pain grew sharp again. But I held my eyes open and watched his own widen in surpris...

Antin's hand landed on mine, and I gasped, toes curling at the decadent lick of sweetness, aware of how firmly he held me down. Con reached for the other, and I tried to force myself to relax, but my muscles refused and I thrashed as his fingers tangled with mine, drumming slashes of agony rushing through me to meet Antin's opposing pleasure. They clashed in...

Con only lunged forward, arching over me, and I screamed in expectation as his cheek landed on my breast. He nuzzled the spot briefly, and I thought my lungs might collapse. Then a slick, hot tongu...

My toes pressed to the floor for leverage as I pushed into their faces, their hands pinning me in place, a torrent of conflicting sensations snapping and stroking through every muscle, every bone, licking and biting over every nerve. They were the gentlest touches I'd ever been granted at the theater, feather-soft, and yet they...

These weren't orgasms, they were deaths and rebirths, teased and tickled out of me, more the result of the cras...

I shuddered and rocked into Antin's sweet lips, while my shaking hand pushed Con's touch to my breast. He leaned back, found my stare again, and watched me as he pinched my nipple gently. I screamed, saw only light, expected my heart to stop and my body...

I whined, not capable of more, and Con stroked my other breast. Shockingly, I felt another flutter of my cunt on nothing, the pain a strange stimulus.

"Did he hurt you?" The words were rough. I let out a muffled laugh and Nireas's fingers gripped at my waist, too tight for a moment, and then pulled away completely. Yes, Con had hurt me. Changed me, even. I shook my head against the pillow and licked my lips, surprised to find some of Antin's sweetness still remaining. "No," I whispered. Yes. But I had no complaint. Only a strange and concerning new craving.

It was harder now to believe how much pain I'd been in, how shockingly ecstatic every touch from Antin had been, like all the sensation they'd thrust into me had just evaporated. My thighs were a little sore, probably from tensing, but otherwise, I was…practically untouched. "He splits into two men, did you know that?" Ronan blinked at me, the tension in his wings relaxing as they folded tighter to his back. "He gives the other girls the shivers."

He gave me the shivers too, but now I was anticipating them with something a little too much like excitement. I opened my mouth to tell Ronan about the difference between the pair, how careful Con had been to keep his touches balanced with Antin's, how the mind-numbing pain had crashed and blended into the body-melting pleasure to create something higher and grander than either. But Ronan's brow was still furrowed, and he was still searching my skin for bruises or wounds.

"Everyone seems to have an awful lot of opinions about this lately, usually without discussing it with me," I muttered as we stepped back onto the sidewalk. I leaned past Ronan to check the road for traffic, waiting for an ice cart to pass before tugging him across the street with me.

"Oh, was it his sweetness I was smelling on you today?" Ronan bit out. I ground my teeth, but there were a few familiar faces on the street and I didn't want to make a scene. Or at least not more of one than poor fallen Hazel Nix on the arm of one man only to be passed off to another. "It was my climbing onto his cock like I was in heat that you smelled, as a matter of fact," I hissed back.

But he groaned as my lips met his, arms wrapping tightly around me and mouth slanting. His tongue was hot and rich as it stroked my own, and I shuddered as his claws dug through my skirt to grip my ass.

Hunter blinked at me and his hands loosened in surprise, but he didn't retreat. I had room now, so I stroked one hand down from his chest to his crotch, finding the very generous cock slightly hard already. "Your cock was wonderful," I said, and Hunter's black tongue flicked over his bottom lip. "I loved how you fucked me."

"I should not have...have held your throat," he murmured, eyelids growing heavy as I stroked him through his pants. His breaths were ragged as I tightened my grip. "You are too fragile, too precious. I shamed myself." "You made me come so hard," I teased, grinning, leaning in and kissing his chin. His eyes rolled back and he bucked into my hand, and I resisted the urge to laugh. "Hunter, look at my throat now."

"I'm fine. You didn't hurt me," I said softly, and his breath shuddered out in a gust. "You took care of me when I was frightened, and you made me feel so good when I needed you." I debated telling him that he could be rougher, but he was sagging into the door, hips rolling into my grip on his cock, stiff and jumping against my palm. "Fuck me again, Hunter," I breathed against his lips.

"Believe me when I say that the temptation to rut you over the back of that chair, to hear your whimpers as I stuff you with my cock, to feast on your full cunt until you rinse my tongue with your release, is very challenging to refuse." I arched an eyebrow at the orc in front of me. "Sir, that is a very wicked speech."

"You meant it?" he asked softly. "You enjoyed last night?" "I meant it." "And you…will allow me to repeat the attentions?"

Hunter blinked and looked away, and I found I hated when his eyes weren't on me, so I pushed, "I'd let you fuck me right here, on the floor, right now, if you weren't so determined to leave." Hunter's cock jerked against my hip, and his growl vibrated against my chest as I grinned at him.

Brief but delicious, I thought, but I decided not to torture my poor orc any further. I found his lips with mine, rewarded with the rumbling remnants of his growl and the gentle, thorough stroke of his tongue.

"Until curtain call, Miss Nix," he said as he pulled away, the glitter of his eyes giving away his intention to rile me. "Don't wait for the curtain," I said, tipping my chin up. "I'll be waiting for you backstage."

"Eston, do I pay you to think?" Mr. Reddy asked suddenly from the floor. "You pay me to fuck," Eston said, stepping forward. "No," Mr. Reddy said, shaking his head. "No. I pay you to step onto the mark you're told to, to put your cock where you're told to, to come when you're told to, and to walk back off that stage when you're told to.

I understood what it was like to assume, after such a length of time, that I held a special kind of value to the Company of Fiends. And to be swiftly disabused of the notion.

Constantine's effect on me made it impossible to maintain any control. The second he touched me, I would be reduced to sensation, howling and physical, totally at his mercy. It shocked me how ready I was to repeat the minutes from the day before, to surrender all thought and sense to this stranger again. I didn't want witnesses. I didn't want Ronan or Mr. Reddy or Nireas or anyone to see me helpless under Constantine's hands. It wasn't the pain I was afraid of. It was the exposure.