Drake bit the inside of his cheek and curled his fingers into fists.
Artemus met his gaze from the other side of the room. The blond was leaning against the wall next to the door with his arms folded across his chest. He narrowed his eyes fractionally, his expression clearly telling Drake to relax.
Drake swallowed a curse and glared at him for a second. I’d like to see you relax if you were standing here strapped to a fucking cross about to be tortured by a demon in some kind of sick sex play!
Artemus’s lips twitched in a mildly amused smile for an instant, as if he’d read his mind. Serena studied Drake with a carefully detached expression where she sat in the chair next to Artemus.
A sound distracted Drake. He looked over to the right and saw the demon remove several items from the hooks lining the interior walls and doors of a wardrobe.
The man’s companion straightened where she sat on the edge of the bed, Smokey in her lap. “Oh.” She bit her lip at the demon’s choice of playthings, arousal bringing a flush of color to her cheeks. “I like those.”
Drake stared at the contraptions the demon placed on a side table next to the cross. There were two floggers, a wicked looking whip, a liquid wax kit, nipple clamps, and what looked like some kind of electrostimulation device. His gaze focused on the leather item in the demon’s right hand. It was a red ball gag.
A shudder raced through Drake when the man stepped up to him. He fought down the foul energy boiling inside him as the demon’s aura resonated with the darkness within his soul.
“Open up,” the man commanded in a hard voice.
He took Drake’s chin in a brutal grip and forced his lower jaw down.
“Easy,” Serena said coldly. “Don’t mark him.”
Drake stiffened when the man placed the ball gag inside his mouth before fastening the leather ends tightly at the back of his head. The man’s breath washed across Drake’s face as he leaned back slightly and stared into Drake’s eyes, the light inside his dark gaze bright with depraved sexual excitement. Drake didn’t have to look down to know how turned on the guy was.
I think I’m going to be sick.
The man slipped a knife out of his dress pants.
Artemus straightened slightly. Serena narrowed her eyes.
The demon looked over at them and smiled faintly at their expressions. “Relax. This is just for his clothes.”
Cool air washed across Drake’s chest and midriff as the man cut the buttons off his shirt one by one, the fasteners pinging softly when they landed on the wooden floor. The demon parted the ends of the shirt to expose Drake’s torso and stepped back to admire his handiwork.
“Pity,” he murmured. “Whip marks would suit your skin.”
Drake bit down on the ball gag. And my sword would suit your heart, asshole. He stiffened when the man turned and attached the wires on the electrical device to the nipple clamps. Oh shit.
“Allow me,” Serena said coldly from the other side of the room.
She rose, crossed the floor, and took the items off the demon. Drake glared at her when she stopped before him.
“You need to loosen up a bit,” she murmured in a low voice only he could hear. “You’re not exactly conforming to the image of a submissive pet.”
He glowered at her. His pulse skittered a second later when she ran her left hand all the way down his chest to the buckle of his belt. She leaned into him and brought her lips to his right ear, her fingers clenching slightly on the toned muscles of his abdomen.
“You can play pretend, can’t you?” she whispered.
Drake blinked. Her breath on his skin and her touch were evoking a wholly different feeling to that of the demon who’d just manhandled him. He gasped around the ball gag in the next instant when he felt the cool bite of the nipple clamps on his flesh. Something flashed in Serena’s eyes before she handed the electrostimulation box to the demon and headed back to her chair.
The demon reached for the controls, a hungry smile on his lips.
Drake hissed when the first electric current stabbed through him. The woman on the bed let out a low moan and squirmed, her eyes feverish with lust, her gaze locked on him and her companion.
Drake panted through his nose while the demon adjusted the controls on the device, sending stronger and stronger pulses coursing through him. His knife trembled against his forearm where it lay hidden under the sleeve of his shirt. He gritted his teeth and felt sweat bead his forehead as he resisted the urge to unleash the wicked force threatening to rip itself loose from inside his body.
“I don’t think he’s enjoying that,” Serena said in a warning tone.
The demon ignored her and ramped up the current.
Drake let out a grunt. Smokey stirred and hopped off the lap of the woman on the bed. Artemus stepped away from the wall, his expression darkening.
It was Serena who reached the demon first. She clamped her fingers on his wrist and stayed his hand as he went to increase the intensity of the electric current once more.
“I said, I don’t think he’s enjoying that!” she snapped.
The man glowered at her, his features shifting and his eyes flaring with an amber light, the vile creature within him emerging for a fleeting moment.
“Babe?” The woman had risen from the bed and stood watching her companion and Serena hesitantly, her teeth worrying her lower lip. “Is everything okay?”
The man took a shuddering breath. He clenched his jaw and smiled at the woman. “Everything is fine, sweetheart. Why don’t you sit down and enjoy the—”
Drake’s eyes widened. Artemus drew a sharp breath from the other side of the room. Smokey’s fur shivered and trembled at the same time a low growl escaped his throat.
Serena turned and met Drake’s stricken stare. “What is it?”
Drake’s stomach twisted as the air inside the room thickened with a suffocating aura of pure evil. They know. They know we’re here!
The man tilted his head toward the door, as if listening to something. He scowled, transformed into his full demonic form, and stabbed Serena in the chest with his knife.