“What? Oh.” Mace and a few other DART colleagues had joined Blade, and they were waving her over. Well, Blade wasn’t. He looked like he’d rather be anywhere else.
Scotty knew the feeling.
She turned back to Amber. “Let’s talk later, okay?”
Amber grabbed Scotty’s arm as she stood. “Don’t tell Talon what I said to you. Swear it.”
Screw that. Talon needed to know that his psycho girlfriend hadmessed with Amber. But Scotty had broken enough vows this week, so she’d keep her word. Besides, there were always workarounds.
Fallen angels disappeared all the time.
“I swear, I will not say a word to Talon.” Evil Barbie, however, was another story. Scotty jerked her thumb over at her friends. “Gotta go.”
Leaving Amber to her sketchbook, she crossed the yard. Lyiah Zee, DART’s Media Manager, ushered her into a gap between Mace and Blade. “Stand here,” she said. “I want to get a picture of you guys for the company newsletter. We’re highlighting the wendigo mission.”
Scotty held in a groan. She didn’t want to think about the wendigo mission ever again. Doing so made her think about a lot more than cannibalistic monsters. It made her think of sitting in Mace’s lap while his fangs were buried in her throat. It made her think of being beneath Blade while his powerful body surged against hers. It made her wonder if any male could ever make her feel the way Mace and Blade had.
Lyiah made an impatient scooting gesture, and Scotty gingerly wedged herself closer between the two males, flinching when her hip brushed against Blade’s hand.
Chill. He touched you a million times before you had sex, and you never reacted like that.
Gods, she needed to get control of herself.
Step back from the situation and look at it with logic. Not emotion.
Her father used to tell her that during training, back when she’d been a lot wilder and more impulsive. But he hadn’t said it to her in years. He hadn’t needed to.
The problem here was that she couldn’t set aside her feelings, because she didn’t even know what they were.
The party was rocking. The Horsemen had gone all out for Amber’s birthday, including booking one of the most popular bands in the world. Well, Stryke had called in that favor, but it was still cool. They’d be starting any minute now. Maybe then, Blade would stop scowling at Stryke, who would leave as soon as the music started. Stryke had alwaysbeen sensitive to sounds, but music was especially irritating because he could literally taste it, and for some reason, it always tasted bad.
That would suck.
“Can you guys scoot closer?” Lyiah gestured to Blade and Mace, urging them to move in on Scotty.
“Sure.” Mace threw his arm around Scotty’s shoulders and pulled her in with a playful tug as she wrapped her arm around his waist. He glanced over at his buddy, who had stiffly inched closer but still held himself half a foot apart. “Yo. Blade. Get in here.”
Blade offered a brief, contrite smile and pressed up against Scotty, arm to arm, hip to hip. The whole thing was awkward as hell.
“Come on, Blade.” Lyiah gave him an exasperated look. “Put your arm around them. You know, like you’re buddies and not strangers on the street. The story is going to highlight your unit’s camaraderie and teamwork.”
Blade seemed bizarrely flustered as he nodded and gingerly brought his arm to rest just beneath Mace’s on Scotty’s back.
Maybe Blade had a thing for Lyiah? She was cute, smart, and, as a species of blood-drinking demon that took their nourishment during sex, she was probably a lot of fun in bed. But it wasn’t like Blade to get weird around females. If he wanted one, he went after her with the self-confidence of a male who rarely faced rejection.
That was the awesome thing about being a Seminus demon. Females wanted you. Resistance was futile and all that. As lust demons, they’d been gifted with unnaturally good looks, powerful, seductive pheromones, and the ability to pleasure a female unconscious.
The tradeoff was that as much as females loved them, males hated them. Mace could deal with the jealous or pissed-off randos, but he had to watch out for the greedy fucking mercenaries. Bastards made a fortune selling abducted Sems to sickos—sickos who made black-market aphrodisiacs from enslaved Seminus demons.
Mace shuddered. Most of those poor males died a slow, torturous death, wrung so dry they were basically just husks at the end.
Not cool, especially when the aphrodisiacs could be bought legally.
Made by StryTech, of course.
Mace had never been to the facility where Sems couldpleasantlydonate semen for the legal creams, tinctures, and pills created and marketed by StryTech. Still, he’d heard they employed extremely talented females who coaxed every drop from a wrung-out male.
Sadly, and infuriatingly, there would always be a segment of thepopulation who would believe the black-market stuff was better because of how it was harvested. Some people believed that the more the male suffered, the more potent the results would be. Fuckers. They were the same ignorant assholes who believed that fear and pain made the meat of animals tastier, when it was the exact opposite.
