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  Daelas didn’t need to look at Jaren to know he was angry. The small space fairly crackled with energy as a wave of fury, so complete, hit the tall, normally sensible demon businessman, turning his vision red. This guy had Sage, and was hurting her.

  Hurting their mate.

  Jaren started forward, murder written on his face, but Daelas stopped him with a hand on his arm. His jaw clenched with rage as he shook his head. “Get Sage, this one’s all mine.”

  With a roar, he propelled himself across the intervening space, barrelling into the tall figure trying to shove Sage back into her apartment. Hard hands dropped onto the human’s shoulders, tearing him away from his victim and slamming him into the opposite wall. Incubi weren’t generally known for their combat abilities; they were lovers, not fighters. But when the shit hit the fan, they were still demons, which put them higher in the pecking order than your garden variety Homo sapiens.

  All the air left the human’s lungs in a rush, the speed Daelas had used to throw the man into the wall winding him. The guy didn’t have time to respond or even move, before the demon’s fist connected heavily with his jaw. The man’s head snapped to the side and he stumbled, going down on one knee. He then shook his head and blinked in surprise, dazed and obviously having trouble working out where the two furious looking men had come from.

  “Who the hell are you?”

  “Your worst fucking nightmare,” Daelas snarled, reaching down for him. Ready to finish what he’d started, and put this worthless piece of human trash in a shallow grave.

  “Daelas, no! Marcus isn’t worth it!” Sage’s panic-stricken voice stopped him, cut through the rage coiling in his body and clouded his vision. He dropped his hands, looking over his shoulder.

  Sage was wrapped safely in Jaren’s arms, his jacket covering her torn clothing, preserving her modesty. Daelas’ gaze flicked over her, assuring himself she was safe. She was pale, her large eyes wide and frightened; but for him, not of him. He sighed and looked back at the human cowering at his feet.

  Marcus pushed himself upright, looking from one to the other. “You’re some of her fairy friends, I assume?” he asked, a sneer on his face. “About right. You two are pretty enough to be fairies. Probably a pair of fairies doing each other. I heard you lot are kinky like that.”

  Daelas pinned Marcus to the wall by his throat with a hard grip. “Now, as an insult, that was poor. As a method of highlighting your prejudice and lack of intelligence, congratulations, it was spot on.” The soft tone of his voice was totally at odds with the murderous expression on his face. “To answer your question, I’m the sort of fairy that does bad things to people that piss me off,” he added, reaching out with his mind and sliding into Marcus’.

  Like with most humans it was easily done, child’s play for Daelas and his kind. Most of them learnt to read a human mind before they were out of the nursery, and by the time they hit puberty, most could do so without their subject being aware of it. Daelas didn’t bother with stealth, with Marcus struggling in panic as he rifled through the man’s mind.

  Daelas shuddered, feeling sick at the images and dark desires he found in there, all centred around Sage and other women the guy knew. Christ, he was going to need a month-long bath after being inside there. Then he caught something, just the tail end of it, and followed it to its source. Grimly, he tweaked a few “settings” in the human’s brain and withdrew.

  “Gerroffme! What are you doing? What the fuck…?”

  Daelas let him go, allowing the man to sag against the wall as he grinned in sadistic triumph and stepped back.

  “What did you do to him?” Sage asked as Marcus whimpered pathetically, rubbing at his eyes as if trying to clear them.

  Marcus dropped his hands and looked at the small group. Panic filled the man’s eyes, and with a cry of terror he bolted past them, rebounding off Daelas’ shoulder and fleeing down the stairs.

  Daelas chuckled, unholy amusement running through him. “Seems our friend there is quite the homophobe. So I replaced your image, in all his sick little fantasies, with a twenty stone prison inmate named Bubba. Now, whenever he thinks about you, all he’s going to see is Bubba. I shouldn’t think you’ll have any more trouble with him.”

  Sage nodded, shivering as she cuddled closer to Jaren. Tears welled in the back of her eyes. She’d never been so glad to see anyone as she had the two demons. Even though this morning she’d done a runner on them, after all the scary ‘soul-mate’ talk, she could kiss the ground they walked on.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, “He…he…” She couldn’t get any further, the tears in her eyes multiplying and spilling over onto her cheeks.

  “Shush, shush,” Jaren murmured, his lips gently against her hair as he rocked her soothingly. “It’s over now. He’s gone.”

  He looked up at Daelas, jerking his head toward the door as he guided her back into her apartment.

  Sage wouldn’t let him go, clinging to his strength as he settled her onto the couch, dragging him down to sit with her.

  “I’m sorry,” she murmured through her tears. “I’m not normally this pathetic. Honest.”

  Worried about how stupid she looked with both of them watching her, Daelas crouched down in front of the couch, and she struggled to sit up. She dabbed at the tears on her cheeks with the back of her hand, then took a deep breath.

  “I feel a little better now.” The comment had been meant for their benefit, but Sage was surprised to realise that she in fact did feel better. The horrible nausea that’d gripped her, making her stomach churn and bringing her out in a hot sweat when Marcus had touched her, had all but faded away.

  “I felt sick, like really sick,” she told them, a small frown of her brows as she tried to work it out. “I haven’t felt that physically bad since I had appendicitis when I was twelve. But back then, it didn’t go away this quickly.”

  Daelas smiled a little, nothing more than a quirk of his lips. She’d noticed that that was his way last night, and he was the more reserved of the two. Except when it came to doing something wicked to her. Sage shivered, a familiar heat coiling low in her belly. She felt heat coming off her cheeks. God, what was the matter with her? She’d nearly been assaulted in her own home, and now all she could think about was jumping her two saviours.

  “I’m sick,” she murmured softly, “really sick.”

  “You’re not,” Jaren said reassuringly, his hand smoothing down her back as she sat with her head in her hands. A comforting gesture that she appreciated. “Far from it. From what I understand, this is quite normal.”

  Sage’s head came up slowly. “What do you mean normal? I don’t know about you demons, but I can assure you, for me, that was certainly not normal!” Her voice rose a little on the end of the sentence, a shrill note of frustration and panic. Sage didn’t like things she didn’t understand, especially when it seemed as if other people knew what was going on, and were keeping her out of the loop.

  Daelas’ fingers under her chin, pulling her around to look at him, silenced her. His silver-eyed gaze was understanding, compassionate. She felt it again, that weird pull in her chest she’d felt back at the bar, and then just before they’d shown up to rescue her. Something she’d never felt before, but a feeling her instincts were telling her was important.

  “Something’s happening to me, isn’t it?” Her voice was a bare whisper of sound, a sense of worry taking over as she looked at him. “Have I caught some weird sort of demon STD or something?”

  The strangled snort from Jaren made her look around, finding him grinning and shaking his head in amusement. For all his “bad boy” image, he was actually the one who smiled the easiest. “No little pixie, we don’t carry or contract STDs, but you’re right, something has happened to you. You’ve—”

  “Bonded to us,” Daelas added, seamlessly picking up where his friend left off, his intense gaze looking her face over, as if searching for a reaction.

  Shock coursed through Sage and she sh
ook her head. “No, no. We couldn’t have, not already. You said…” She paused, realizing she’d just given herself away.

  “I said what?” Daelas prompted gently, obviously trying hard not to push. Both of them giving her the time she needed to come to terms with this.

  “I woke up and heard you talking. Something about soul-mates, about me being your soul-mate. It scared me. I ran. I was scared you’d haul me off for some sort of demon shotgun wedding,” she admitted, biting her lip as her cheeks felt as if they were on fire.

  She’d run out on them, and still they’d come to her rescue. Were it another time and place she might’ve been concerned that they’d managed to track her down, but instead, she was thankful. And something else. She was pleased to see them. Deep down, an ache in her very core eased, just being around them.

  The sound of masculine amusement filled her small living room. “Sweetheart, we don’t have weddings. We don’t need them. As soon as we meet and touch our soul-mate, the bonding process starts,” Daelas explained, an indulgent look on his face. “As soon as Jaren joined us in the office, I’m afraid you were done for. You bonded to us then.”

  Sage nodded slowly, feeling the truth of his words. She then blinked, looking at him in surprise. “What? To both of you?” she queried, not quite believing what she’d just heard. It’d been miracle enough that just one of them had fancied her last night, but to learn that both had, was something she was having some difficulty coming to terms with. But now, they were telling her that there was more…that she had them for good?

  “Both of us, for as long as we live.” They spoke together, their voices solemn. Sincere.

  “Wow, okay. That I didn’t expect!”

  “And that’s not all.” Jaren shifted behind her, moving closer. She felt his breath on the side of her neck an instant before his lips touched her skin. A gentle caress that seemed to open the flood gates. Deep in her chest, she felt the bond tighten for a second as she accepted it, settling into a more comfortable fit as she smiled at them. The two incredibly hot men she just happened to be bonded to.

  “Hmm?” she asked, tilting her head to the side as Jaren worked his way lower, Daelas’ hands smoothing over her thighs. Parting them so he could press between them.

  “We have lots of stamina,” Daelas breathed against her lips. “More than enough to love you every second of every night.”

  Sage chuckled and pulled him closer, giving into temptation and kissing him deeply. “Now, a claim like that, you’re going to have to prove. Starting right now…”

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  About the Author

  Mina Carter is a New York Times & USA Today bestselling author of romance in many genres. She lives in the UK with her husband, daughter and a bossy cat.

  Connect with Mina online at:

  mina-carter.com

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