Angel's Eye Read online

  Published by EVERNIGHT PUBLISHING ® at Smashwords

  www.evernightpublishing.com

  Copyright© 2018 Katerina Ross

  ISBN: 978-1-77339-859-4

  Cover Artist: Jay Aheer

  Editor: Karyn White

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ANGEL’S EYE

  The Sons of Gomorrah, 3

  Katerina Ross

  Copyright © 2018

  Once, Tristan had wanted his life to be a fairytale. An exciting sequence of wonders and adventures. But most of the fairytales he’d learned since then, the ones that weren’t edited for children and illustrated with exceedingly colorful pictures, seemed to be rather grim in their essence. They were about curses and blood and death, even if it was the villain who died.

  Now Tristan suspected it might be better to settle for something more common. But aside from it being not quite easy to curb his former ambitions and hopes, to forget his past completely, there was an additional problem: his current companion could be called anything but ordinary.

  Living with an incubus turned out to be challenging, mostly because of mundane matters no demonologists, ancient or modern, cared to address in their lengthy manuscripts. Did incubi require actual meals, or were they content with feeding on sexual energy? Did they need toothbrushes and razors, or could they simply alter their appearance without tedious grooming? Could they catch the flu, or were they immune to all diseases? Tristan had looked up more than a few demon-themed texts on the Net in a hasty attempt to prepare himself for settling in with an unusual companion, but they all seemed to be frustratingly vague, evasive, and contradicting each other, as if on purpose. On the whole, it was very much like trying to build up a relationship with the dubious aid of psychological books, abundant but totally useless for the most part when it came to real life.

  Talking was certainly a better option than looking for answers online, but Tristan was so used to living alone by now that he’d probably be out of his depth in day-to-day communication even if he had an affair with an ordinary human. Asking Jarek about some things felt awkward, like Tristan was studying him. Sometimes there was no other choice, but whenever Tristan could avoid it, he preferred not to bother Jarek with questions.

  Maybe his vanity was partly to blame, too. He’d always strived to be the best in his line of work, even after he’d become a freelance magician, so admitting he still was ignorant in some aspects of demonology was unpleasant. There had been rumors in Scholomance about a group of mages running a project on rare kinds of demons, including incubi and succubi, but Tristan hadn’t taken part in it and knew no details. Either it had been top secret, or it hadn’t lasted long, which was more likely. Most sorcerers considered pleasure demons to be irrelevant. The odds of meeting one were slim, and the consequences of such an encounter promised to be rather enjoyable, so why bother with further research?

  Especially because many topics for study were … of a sensitive nature. For instance, one of the most puzzling things was that incubi climaxed without spilling anything. Jarek said it was an orgasm anyway and clearly thought there was nothing more to discuss, and of course Tristan was too delicate—or more exactly, too embarrassed—to pry, but it left him curious. Incubi could be cross-fertile with humans, obviously. Not that it happened often, but some precedents were indisputable. Merlin, the one who had formed the Avalon congregation of magicians and thus ensured the dominance of the Welsh over the Isles, was strongly believed to be a cambion, the child of an incubus. But as for how exactly such an interbreeding was managed, demonologists had no unified opinion. They tended to disagree with each other on every possible issue, and the sex life of incubi was of no exception. Perhaps reproduction was a conscious choice for this species?

  Maybe it wasn’t crucial, though, to know something like that when having an incubus for a roommate and a partner. However tempting it was to sift through all this inhuman otherness and to classify it, not always for practical reasons but out of a habit for order, there were moments when it didn’t matter in the least. Every time, it was a small wonder—to wake up into unexpected joy of not being alone anymore, and it had nothing to do with magic or with Jarek’s supernatural abilities. The novelty of it hadn’t worn off yet. Yeah, it was still weird to see up close a face that was a copy of Tristan’s own—with a mischievous smile that wasn’t his. It felt like a sequel to a dream, but a pleasant one, so it was always a good kind of shock.

  Tristan would have never imagined he had narcissistic tendencies, yet he couldn’t but admit he took pleasure in watching Jarek, in the nude or dressed. Maybe because Jarek wore the exact same body as he did with more elegance. Unlike Tristan, he was effortlessly graceful. Seductive in every movement. And he liked being watched. Where Tristan would be self-conscious and doubting if he looked adequate, Jarek basked in attention. It was probably a common trait with incubi, but Tristan envied him a little nevertheless. He’d always been too much of an insecure prude himself, and not only because his body was marred with scars and he felt diffident about it. Even before that, with Bran…

  No, he didn’t want to pursue this line of thought. He’d rather simply enjoy what he had now, without remembering what was forever lost to him.

  What he had was a contract for a year and a day with a pleasure demon whose company he happened to relish very much, a job for the same amount of time, and a rented apartment, very small for two, but sunlit in the mornings when he and Jarek half-sleepily made out among the crumpled sheets. It was freezing cold outside, a Slavic winter in its worst, and getting out of the bed seemed like an unwelcome prospect.

  “You have a terrible wake up ringtone,” Jarek murmured against his lips. “It’s depressing. Nobody would want to get up at all on hearing it.”

  As if to confirm his words, the not-turned-off phone wailed again with the first notes of “The Devil’s Trill”, beautiful but rather sad indeed.

  Tristan tried to reach for the damn thing blindly, without disengaging himself from under Jarek’s warm body. And, surprisingly, succeeded. “I thought we were not going to get up just yet anyway, huh?”

  Jarek hummed thoughtfully as he nibbled his way down Tristan’s neck.

  The next morning, Tristan was startled by an overly cheerful tune of a cheesy pop song: Jarek had fiddled with his phone. And had a good laugh, the smug bastard. No matter how irritated Tristan was in the first moments of dazed uncomprehending, later he had to admit it felt surprisingly nice to have someone pulling a prank on him. He took life too gravely, and Jarek brought spontaneous, joyous confusion into it.

  Jarek could unexpectedly draw him in for a possessive kiss in front of an uncurtained window in the evening, with the room brightly lit behind them, for any passerby to see their silhouettes melting into each other. He could reach out to interlace his fingers with Tristan’s while waiting for their turn at the till in a supermarket, a cart with groceries temporarily forgotten. Or murmur something highly inappropriate into his ear. Tristan’s initial reaction to this disregard of personal space and social manners was often uneasiness he couldn’t completely suppress. He wasn’t used to this kind of laidback, uninhibited intimacy. But at the same time, it made him feel more alive than he’d ever let himself be after Scholomance.

  To some degree, it had been similar with Bran who’d been constantly teasing him, provoking
him… Never in public, though. In the presence of others, Bran had always managed to remain aloof, just like Tristan, which had suited them both at the time. They had striven to be serious young men.

  Jarek never wavered because of someone else watching. And although it bothered Tristan a bit, in the end, he usually found himself relaxing into this carefree closeness, into having fun, into a more uncomplicated and happy way of living than his.

  Of course, Jarek wasn’t all joy and self-confidence. It was hard not to notice some things. Dark things. The ones Tristan suspected Jarek would rather not talk about. For example, the fact that incubi happened to have nightmares just like ordinary human beings.

  One night, Tristan woke up into the darkness and at first wasn’t sure what had stirred him. A car rattling over the cobblestones in the street? But then he heard it, a faint sound, not quite a whine. Jarek lay beside him, face buried in a pillow and both hands trapped under it, the sheets all wadded like he’d been tossing and turning a lot in his sleep, and now and then his breaths came out like muffled whimpers, trembling in his throat. It was a bad dream, nothing more, but seeing Jarek like this, locked in it all alone, somewhere inside of his mind, suddenly felt scary.

  Tristan poked at Jarek’s shoulder slightly, unsurely. “Hey?”

  Jarek startled violently, rolling back to the other side of the bed. The last vestiges of sleep fled from Tristan.

  “Jarek? It’s me. It’s fine. Just a dream.”

  He was at a loss whether his touch would be comforting or unwelcome, so he just stayed where he was, propped on his elbow, anxious and hesitant.

  Finally, Jarek moved closer, and his hand stole over Tristan’s waist. “Yeah, just a dream. Sorry to have woken you. But I can make up for that.”

  He mashed a kiss against Tristan’s lips, unexpectedly, and it wasn’t drowsy at all, more like urgent, insistent. Tristan made a muffled sound in surprise, something between a laugh and a protest, but gave in without resistance, instantly, letting Jarek claim him. Jarek’s tongue forced its way into his mouth, swished around inside, searching, pillaging, rough and eager. Tristan was both awake and not quite so, sluggishly pliant in contrast to Jarek’s demanding fervor. He felt himself slowly growing hard, but with no need to act on it because Jarek was doing all the work, hands restlessly roaming along Tristan’s body, pressing and kneading in all the right places. It was very much like an erotic dream.

  Finally, Jarek pulled away, but only to turn him to the side and to suck a bruise into his neck. Tristan gasped, a shiver running down his spine. Jarek immediately pushed two fingers into his open mouth—and Tristan curled his tongue around them, habitually and unhurriedly, simply accepting instead of responding in kind and applying teeth. He suckled gently, wetting Jarek’s digits, knowing all too well why he’d better do it thoroughly.

  The heat of Jarek’s erect cock brushed against his thigh, and Tristan bent his leg to give Jarek better access. As expected, spit-slicked fingers burrowed in between his buttocks, slamming in all the way up to the knuckles.

  Oh. He was still fairly loose after what they had been doing prior to falling asleep, but not enough to feel no burn at the sudden stretching. Yet he couldn’t help squirming into the motions of Jarek’s hand, almost on an autopilot, not vigorously, but certainly encouraging. This earned him a low, feral growl, and pulsing, thick flesh pushed into him.

  Pressed up hard behind Tristan, Jarek was tweaking his nipple, distracting him from the slight discomfort with another sensation, until he was fully in. He paused then, breathing heavily into Tristan’s nape. Tristan’s half-hearted erection had wilted completely in the process, but this intense, unmoving closeness made his cock stir again. Jarek reached down and palmed it, squeezed proprietarily.

  “Like that?” he murmured. “Want more?”

  Tristan answered with a soft appreciative groan as Jarek rocked his hips, slowly at first, but gradually picking up the pace until Tristan had to press a palm to his mouth to stop himself from making louder noises. The sound of skin rhythmically slapping against skin was already loud enough to ruin the midnight silence. Hazily, Tristan wondered if neighbors could hear it, but this thought evaporated in a flash as Jarek bit down hard on his shoulder and Tristan came with a short cry, unable to suppress it.

  Afterwards, they were lying spoon-like, melted into satiated bonelessness, with Jarek’s knees tucked behind Tristan’s. Perfectly molded against each other. Slowly slipping towards oblivion. Tristan’s lips felt swollen, and he knew he would have a hickey on his neck. Maybe even two or three. With a dreamlike lover by his side, it was easy to pretend everything was perfect. Or maybe it really was, this very moment.

  ****

  In the morning, though, an invisible veil of awkwardness fell between them. Tristan wanted to ask Jarek what had startled him so badly. It wasn’t the first time Jarek had been unquiet in his sleep. Was it a recurrent dream?

  But Jarek was acting like nothing had happened, though he seemed to be slightly subdued and didn’t talk much. Tristan didn’t want to push and make him feel even more uncomfortable by asking bothersome questions. If Jarek wished to say something, he probably would have done so.

  In the shower, Tristan discovered there was a bruise where Jarek had been gripping his hip, in addition to the hickeys. He poked at it experimentally. It was strangely enticing, to be marked like that. He wouldn’t mind if Jarek joined him, like he often did, and explored his skin under the hot spray in search for more marks of the same origin, but Jarek stayed away this time and Tristan couldn’t muster enough cheekiness to call him.

  During breakfast, they always bumped into each other in the tiny kitchen, and Tristan liked it. Particularly when Jarek wore nothing but boxers, like now, and sometimes even less. Today, however, Jarek kept his distance, and it was a tad worrying, but again, Tristan withheld from commenting on it.

  It wasn’t until Tristan started washing the dishes when Jarek finally slipped closer. Very close. He caged Tristan in against the counter, one arm on each side of his body, not quite pinning him but also not giving him anywhere to go. He licked a swath of skin below Tristan’s ear, which was a nice way to start a conversation.

  “I wasn’t too rough, was I? Tonight.”

  Maybe it was easier for him to talk when Tristan wasn’t looking.

  It was the same for Tristan. If it made Jarek forget his nightmare, he didn’t mind a little rough, and he had no problem with saying that, face to face. But he had something else to admit, and it was better doing it like this.

  “Uh. I liked it, actually.”

  “That’s not what I asked,” Jarek whispered into his nape. His hands hiked up Tristan’s t-shirt, slid underneath it, but not demanding this time, just tenderly wandering up and down Tristan’s flanks. “I … you see, it wasn’t … I wouldn’t normally…”

  Jarek seemed to be uncharacteristically out of words.

  Tristan turned, facing him now, but still pinned to the counter by Jarek’s whole body.

  “It’s really fine. I know you would have stopped if I said I didn’t like it.”

  Jarek avoided his gaze.

  “I’m usually more … calculating. In the sense, how would it feel for you if I do this, how you’re going to respond if I do that. I’m not supposed to be…”

  “…enjoying yourself?”

  “More like losing control. Don’t get me wrong, I get off on this kind of scheming. I guess it’s natural for incubi, watching for reactions, striving to get it right. It’s part of the fun, doing a detective’s work while shagging. Or a psychologist’s. So I’m enjoying myself perfectly well. But tonight … it was a bit egotistic, wouldn’t you say?”

  Tristan leaned in to nip at Jarek’s lower lip, rubbed his nose against Jarek’s. “Hey, it’s called spontaneous sex.”

  Jarek sighed like he hadn’t been entirely convinced, but answered with a slow open-mouthed kiss to Tristan’s chin, licking down his neck after that to lave at the spots where he’d left
suck marks last night.

  “Sorry about those,” he murmured. He sounded genuinely apologetic.

  Tristan let out a small laugh, embarrassed to confess they fascinated him. “That could be a way to tell us two from each other, I guess.”

  “You could mark me, too, if you want,” Jarek suggested, but there was unusual hesitancy in his voice. It was more an offer of reciprocation than true eagerness.

  “Uh, no. I’d rather just…” Tristan brushed his fingertips along Jarek’s side, caressingly.

  They were pressed together chest to chest, hips to hips, with Jarek still trapping Tristan against the counter, so there was little room for maneuvering. But Jarek took the hint: he slid his hands under the hem of Tristan’s t-shirt and stroked his back in the same leisurely rhythm, up and down. As they started kissing, Tristan mirrored his movements, his palms roving lazily across Jarek’s bare skin … until his hand slipped under the elastic waistband of Jarek’s boxers to cup his warm buttock, and Jarek suddenly tensed.

  It was just for an instant—a small pause before he resumed exploring Tristan’s mouth even more zealously, but it was enough to break the mood. Tristan wasn’t sure what to do with his hands anymore and froze, having dropped them at his sides. Jarek had always topped so far, and Tristan didn’t mind. He was simply curious if Jarek might enjoy it the other way around, too. But clearly, it was a bad idea. As for Tristan himself, he relished the exquisite sensation of being filled, pleasure bordering on discomfort at first, but then turning into a maddening, uncontrollable ecstasy. Some men didn’t like it, though. Bran didn’t.

  No. No. Don’t think of Bran now.

  Guilt sliced through him. As if miscalculating and doing something Jarek didn’t want wasn’t enough! It was unfair, sneaking a hand into Jarek’s pants and remembering another lover, but how did people learn to forget? How did they stop themselves from stumbling across unwanted reminders, over and over again? Anything could be a trigger, anything could set a spark of a memory.