Unholy Cravings Read online

  “I’m not going to let you die,” she told the men. Tara sat down next to Soren and framed his face with her hands. His taint seemed less than his brother’s. Donar’s face was contorted in physical pain, while Soren’s seemed more at peace.

  Tara would start with him.

  She moved to his side, closed her eyes and ran her fingers over the rough stubble, imagining how it would feel like against her inner thigh. Soren had strong emotions, she could feel it. If she could somehow reach down and harness it, then perhaps she could save him from his pain.

  Tara let out her magic and searched through the darkness of Soren’s mind. Immediately she was surrounded by a thick, black fog. The taint. It was bad, but she had seen worse from souls that were damaged beyond repair. She pushed past it, wondering whether there was any Soren left in the vast wasteland of his soul or if he was already lost to them.

  She pushed deeper and deeper into his psyche. With each passing second, heat spread through her body. It warmed her skin and caused moisture to pool between her thighs. Desire rose up, making her muscles shake with need. Then she saw it, a spark of humanity in amongst the darkness. She held onto it, tried to amplify it. Almost there…

  Tara was concentrating so hard that she didn’t realize that she wasn’t alone until large fingers closed over her wrist.

  Something was disturbing his sleep. Soren grumbled and tried to ignore it, but the presence was persistent and he started clawing his way back to consciousness even before he was aware of what he was doing. He felt soft fingers against his face. They were caressing his skin in soothing circles, easing away any tension in his neck and shoulders. They were feminine fingers and they felt nice against his skin. Very nice.

  He opened his eyes and stared into the most beautiful heart-shaped face he had ever seen. Her eyes were closed and her ebony hair hung loose around her face. It was a short, blunt cut, the kind that was longer around the face and shorter in the back. She had long, thick lashes and ruby-stained lips. He had a sudden urge to kiss those lips, to feel them against his skin and around his cock.

  Wait a minute. Where was he? Who was this?

  Soren pushed aside his growing desire and grabbed the girl’s wrist. “Who are you?” he asked.

  The woman gasped and opened her eyes. “You’re awake.”

  “Obviously.”

  “I’m Tara. Are you Soren?”

  “I-I don’t know. Yes.” Soren squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed his temple with his free hand. “The name is familiar. Yes, I’m Soren. Everything’s so fuzzy.”

  She shifted closer on the bed. “That’s understandable after the hit you had to the head.” She touched his temple with her free hand, causing him to wince. “You were running from deahmans.”

  “From what?” He opened his eyes.

  Tara pulled back, fear flashing through her features. “Deahmans.” She tried to stand. “Your eyes.”

  “Don’t go.” She was trying to leave. Anger surged through him. Soren sat up and locked his hand around Tara’s arm as she tried to stand. “Tell me who you are and what’s happening to me.”

  His voice sounded low and gravelly, even to his own ears. Tara inched back from him.

  “Your eyes are red.”

  He blinked. Everything seemed brighter somehow. More vivid.

  “It’s your deahman,” she said.

  “How do you know?” He didn’t try to deny the darkness inside of him. It would be foolish. Besides, a part of him wanted to embrace the evil, revel in it.

  “My queen’s spirit-mate experiences similar changes when his inner darkness reared its ugly head.”

  “Spirit-mate?” Soren let go of her arm and squeezed his eyes shut. Fuck, his head hurt. It felt like a tractor trailer truck had driven over his brain.

  Tara visibly relaxed and sat back down on the edge of the bed. “I trust you won’t hurt me, at least not in your current state.”

  “What are you talking about, woman?” He opened his eyes and looked at her. Big mistake. The woman was beyond gorgeous. His inner darkness howled and his cock thickened. Then he caught some movement behind her.

  “What are you hiding behind your back?”

  “Nothing.” Tara moistened her lips as she dipped her gaze from his face to the open tear in his shirt.

  “How did this happen?” He asked as he stuck his finger in the tear.

  “I told you, you were running from deahmans.” Tara reached out and brushed a stray hair from his temple. “You’re fighting it, aren’t you?”

  “Fighting what?”

  “The darkness inside of you.”

  How did she know so much? “Yes.”

  “Good. Not everyone has the strength to fight it. Many just succumb to the taint and it eats them alive. If you fight it, there’s a chance you could survive.”

  Soren’s cock jerked as he locked his gaze with hers. Never before had he felt emotions so strong. Soren fought the urge to throw Tara down on the bed and fuck her senseless. Shit, what was happening to him? He flexed his fingers as need wound its way through his body, hardening his muscles and making his cock press painfully against the zipper in his jeans.

  “You’re losing the battle, aren’t you?” She inched closer. “I can see it in your face.”

  “I can handle it.” It was a lie. Soren wasn’t sure how much longer he was going to keep the urges at bay. When his taint had this much control, only violence would tame it. Violence or…

  “Kiss me,” she said.

  Soren shook himself from his thoughts. Did he hear her right? “What did you say?”

  “Kiss me. It’s the only way I know to calm the voices in your head.”

  “How did you know—”

  Tara made a frustrated noise and ran her hand around to the back of his neck. Before Soren could protest, she covered his mouth with her own and closed her eyes.

  Her lips were the kind a guy could get lost in. Firm yet feminine, smooth and soft. A deep hunger blossomed in his core. He fought it back, afraid that if he lost himself in the darkness, he’d hurt her.

  Then she ran her tongue over the seam of his lips, coaxing them open. It was wet and warm and oh-so-inviting. Soren couldn’t deny the temptation any longer. He responded, sliding his arms around her waist and sweeping his tongue into her mouth.

  She tasted feminine and sweet, like a dessert. Something that was bad for your health and yet you couldn’t seem to resist.

  Tara groaned and slid her hands over his shoulders. She smelled like cherries. He loved cherries. He placed his hands along the sides of her waist, feeling the smooth curve beneath his fingers. The air heated around them, and he fought the urge to tear off all her clothes and sink his cock deep inside her channel.

  Then he felt a presence, something soft and bright, touch his mind. He recognized it as her. Tara was pure and good and it had been a long time since he held anything so innocent in his arms.

  Soren had been suffering for a long time, longer than his time in hell. His body was bruised and his spirit broken. He needed her, and he sensed that on some level she needed him too. This woman, this kiss, was the anchor he needed in his turbulent life. He wanted to wrap himself up in all of that goodness and forget the past, forget the hopelessness of the future. He wanted to live in the moment. He wanted her.

  Her scent surrounded him, and sexual tension filled the air. Soren slid his hands down over her hips, over the seam of her pants and around her ass. She slipped her fingers down to his waist and beneath his belt. Was she going to touch him? If so, he might come right then and there in her hands. He couldn’t let that happen. This was too good to end just yet.

  He leaned her back onto the bed and covered her body until every inch of her torso touched his. She squirmed against his warmth and he pressed his hard cock against her lower abdomen. She once again wrapped her arms around his neck and he lost himself in the moment, enjoying her taste, her touch. It was nothing short of heaven.

  His control on his emotion
s slipped and something in the air changed. Darkness poured into his mind. His mood became dark and his thoughts became primal. He was going to fuck her not once, not twice, but as many times as his darkness needed to be appeased. He’d fuck her in missionary, then turn her over and take her from behind. Then he’d tie her up and do wicked things to her body just to hear her beg for mercy.

  Yes. Take her. Mine. A low growl vibrated in the back of his throat, surprising them both. They broke the kiss and stared at each other, their breath coming out in labored gasps.

  He could tell by the heat in her gaze, the urgency in her features, that she wanted it just as much as him. Shivers of excitement ran down Soren’s spine as he pictured her crying out in pleasure as he thrust himself deep into her body.

  Tara reached up and dragged him down on top of her. He moved with her and together they sprawled out on the bed. Mine.

  In the back of his mind, Soren heard a click and then felt a cool rush of air against his skin. Before his mind could process the new information, he was pulled off the perfect woman beneath him and thrown through the air. He cried out in surprise as his back slammed into the wall. Then blackness swallowed him whole.

  Chapter Three

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Tara asked.

  “He was molesting you.” Samir’s look of disgust made her wince. “I was protecting your virtue.”

  He was doing no such thing and they both knew it. Samir was just irritated that Tara was getting some action and he wasn’t.

  She lifted her chin. “I liked it.”

  Samir swore. “He’s our mission, not some male escort. After being in hell all of that time, they’re probably tainted. You’re lucky he didn’t try to hurt you.”

  Tara thought of Soren’s red eyes and how they stood out against his pale skin and dirty-blond hair. He looked so hungry, so primal. A tendril of heat wound its way down her center and settled between her thighs.

  “I could have handled it,” she said. “It’s not like I’m totally innocent about the ways of deahmans.”

  Samir rolled his eyes. “Come on, Tara. Wake up. Deahmans feed off lust and violence. Everyone knows that. You were making it stronger.”

  Yes, but… It was more than that. Tara felt something else stir inside Soren while they kissed, something human. She glanced at the still form on the floor.

  “I think you hurt him,” she said. She itched to go to his side, but knew that Samir would just bitch at her more for showing compassion to a deahman.

  “Your mission was to find out information, not suck his face off.”

  Tara pulled her gaze away from Soren and turned to Samir. “I was finding out information. Or did you forget that an Iatros can find out more about a person through one kiss than they can from hours of conversation?”

  Samir smirked and Tara guessed that he was remembering when they had first met, and how on a dare Tara had used her talents on him. The man had a filthy mind and when she called him out on it, he only asked if she wanted to make all of his dirty thoughts come true. She balked at the idea, of course, which only made him laugh.

  “Very well,” he said, changing the subject. “What did you find out?”

  “We have to see if he’s hurt first.” She gave in to the temptation and knelt beside Soren.

  “I didn’t throw him hard.”

  Tara blocked him out and examined Soren’s crumpled body. The poor guy got a small bump to the back of his head to match the one on his temple, but the rest seemed okay. Unfortunately, the bump knocked him unconscious once more.

  She sighed. “Help me bring him back to the bed.”

  Samir grabbed Soren from her arms and dumped him on the bed next to his brother.

  “I’m surprised the other didn’t wake up with all of the noise you two were making,” Samir said.

  “I think that there was something magical in that blast, and that, combined with their taint, is messing with their heads,” she said.

  “So they really are tainted?” Samir retreated toward the door and picked up the coffee cups he had tossed aside in his surprise. “I was just guessing.”

  “I don’t know. I think so.” She hugged herself, remembering the thick black fog in Soren’s mind. “There is an evil presence residing in their minds, that’s for sure.” She watched Samir pick up the empty coffee cups. “I remember Arianne talking about a similar situation with Darien. I think that the twins might have touched the demon stone.”

  Samir tossed the trash away and frowned. “Then we don’t have much time. They’ll be starting their conversion soon, if they haven’t already. If they manage to complete it, they’ll have to be killed, and we’ll lose valuable information.”

  They’ll have to be killed… Dread washed over Tara as she turned to the twins on the bed. “Yeah.”

  The whole situation was frustrating. She hadn’t spent so much time tracking down the twins only to lose them to the darkness. The only way anyone knew to slow the transformation from human to deahman was for an Iatros to bind her spirit to them during the mating ritual. The Iatros magic was a natural antidote to the darkness of the spirit inside them.

  There were risks with such an undertaking, however. The binding was final and unbreakable. Even if Tara wanted to give up her freedom for such an act, she wasn’t sure it would work. The magic inside her body chose her spirit-mate for her. She had no choice in the matter. She had learned as much when she had tried to bind to Samir.

  Tara frowned. She had felt a strange pull when Soren was awake and kissing her. Could it be her magic choosing him for a mate? It was hard to tell.

  If Soren was her spirit-mate, then perhaps she could save him, but where would that leave Donar? It would take a strong Iatros to bind two souls as theirs. Tara had only heard of it happening once before. All her life Tara had been weaker than the other Iatros her age, always feeling inadequate to their stronger power. She knew that she lacked the magic to save them both.

  Her heart ached as she shifted her gaze to Donar. Even at rest, he looked tormented. Out of the two, he seemed to have suffered the most. If their files were correct, Donar was the decision maker, the leader of the twins. Soren depended on him. Did Donar hide his pain for the sake of his brother? Tara had no way of knowing for sure, but she suspected he did. Her research indicated that on many assignments Donar had put aside his own pain and anguish to help out his team. She suspected that this time was no different. It was sweet, really. She liked to think of Donar as more or less the father figure, a second-in-command to Darien’s lead on the FBI team.

  How could she save both Soren and Donar? Her heart protested at the thought of letting such a giving man suffer.

  “I say we leave them here and call your precious queen to pick them up,” Samir said.

  “What?”

  “You heard me.” Samir nodded to the door as a gleam flashed in his eye. “Ever since your friend Arianne has been in charge, you’ve been miserable. You owe these people nothing.”

  “True, but—”

  “But nothing.” He stepped forward. “Come away with me, we’ll go on a grand adventure.”

  “What kind of adventure?”

  He shrugged. “Who knows? That’s the beauty of it.”

  Tara shook her head. “But they’re my clan, my family.”

  “Fuck family. Look where family got me.”

  Tara frowned. She didn’t know a lot about Samir’s past, but she did know that his father was a drunk who slept around and slapped his wife. His mother suffered from depression, wallowing in self-pity until she finally killed herself when Samir was a young child. “Your family’s different.”

  “Mine was physically abusive. Yours is mental. The results are the same. We’re outsiders, Tara.” He held out his hand. “Come.”

  He was right. All her life, Tara had felt that she was a step behind the other Iatros. Her wings were never as big, her magic not as strong. And yet… “Why me?”

  He wiggled his fingers and smil
ed. “Why not you? You know how to fight. You’d be useful.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “I know you. You like the adventure and challenge of your missions. It’s only one small step to stop working for Arianne and Darien to going out on your own.”

  “Like a mercenary?”

  He lowered his arm and shrugged. “It’s just a word. Think of all the fun we’d have.”

  Tara glanced at the men on the bed. They both looked so helpless lying there. If she called Arianne and arranged a pickup, who would protect them until the Iatros guard got there? There was already one mole in the FBI. There could be a second within the Iatros ranks, one that no one knew about. Who would protect the twins from the unseen dangers and teach them of Iatros custom and culture?

  She knew that she couldn’t run away with Samir, not yet anyway. While she wasn’t thrilled with how the other Iatros made her feel inadequate, they would still come through for her in a pinch. Besides, there was more at stake here than the Iatros traditions. If the deahmans found a way to keep the portal open, then they would invade Earth with an army so huge that the Iatros would be unable to stop it.

  “The Iatros have done nothing but hurt us. Come with me.”

  It was tempting, but… “Why do you dislike the Iatros so much?”

  He shrugged. “It’s in the past. I’m my own person now and I do as I please. I don’t have loyalties to anyone.”

  “You’re here with me now. That has to count for something.”

  He smiled. “Only because you are on a grand adventure. You need me.”

  “This is true.” She chuckled. “And here I liked to think it was my feminine side that attracted you.”

  “That too.” Samir winked at her and glanced at the men on the bed. “You’re not going to leave them and run away with me, are you?”

  “No.”

  He sighed. “I’ll stay until this queen of yours arrives, then I’ll go. You can make the decision then as to whether you wish to leave with me or not.”