Demon Huntress

"Want a beer?" Chen asked, as he pushed a plate of spaghetti across the kitchen island.

"Nah."

"Suit yourself." chen snagged a bottle of Harp from the fridge. "What a night, huh? I can't freakin'

believe li li was part of the organ thing. And ren fu, the hunter's sister? Gives me the jeebies, man. Maybe if we could get them to fight again . . ."

ming jie smiled. "You sound like yuan."

"Come on. He had a point. You have to give him that much." chen popped the cap off the beer. "I mean, twins wrestling on the ground? Hot."

Maybe, but ming jie wasn't interested in two women. He wanted only the one. chen went on about twins, ticking his conquests off on his fingers. ming jie recommended a calculator and swept up the plate of food to take it to shu lan, though he wished he had some oranges. Her citrus craving made sense now; Soulshredders were a tropical species that required the fruit to survive.

Halfway to the bedroom, his heart skidded to a halt. The sweet, musky scent of shu lan's arousal drifted from the living room.

yuan.

ming jie sprinted down the hall, caught the corner with his shoulder, and spilled half the spaghetti onto the floor. Not that he noticed. No, all he could see was his own anger in a filter of red splayed across the scene before him.

shu lan stood in the living room, robe loosely tied and showing way too much creamy flesh. yuan, his bloody video game on pause, watched her, his eyes glowing, not with the normal gold of arousal or anger, but with the blue-flecked gold of his hypnotic gift.

"See what it would be like with me?" he was saying. "Bet ming jie won't do that to you. It's not civilized."

The bastard was in her head, feeding her images of gods knew what.

Territorial rage lit ming jie up like a gas-soaked torch. "Back the f.u.c.k off, brother," ming jie bit out. "You don't do humans or berus."

"She's not either. Not anymore." yuan smiled, his white fangs gleaming hungrily. "Fair. Game."

Darkness swallowed him. ming jie dropped the plate and launched over the couch armrest. He slammed yuan into the wall with a hand around the throat. Sober, yuan could kick his b.u.t.t, but he didn't give an imp's a.s.s. "She's mine."

yuan's eyes went half-lidded, and if he was bothered by the fact that ming jie was nearly choking him, it didn't show. "Look at her, ming jie. She's primed. She'll take us both."

An image of yuan brutalizing shu lan with his teeth as he took her tattooed itself into ming jie's brain, turning his thoughts to poison. "Don't touch her," he snarled. "Don't you ever touch her, or I will let the vampires—"

"Hellboy?"

They both turned to shu lan, who stood there as though in a daze, her fingertips playing lazily along the edge of her robe where it gaped at the sternum. A blast of l.u.s.t came from her like a shockwave, and ming jie jerked as though she'd grabbed his c.o.c.k.

"That's never happened before. She should be calling my name," yuan muttered. "And what were you saying about the vamps?"

Ignoring the question, ming jie released yuan with a shove and crossed to shu lan. She flew into his arms, climbed him like a tree until she was wrapped around him, rubbing her face on him, writhing against his body.

She was going to take him right there.

The thought made him so hot, so deliriously fuzzy-headed, that he nearly forgot yuan was watching and let it happen. Instead, he hauled a.s.s to the bedroom. By the time he kicked the door shut, his jeans were unbuttoned. By the time they were halfway to the bed, he was sheathed inside her wet, satin heat.

"Oh, my God, ming jie . . . oh, my God." She pelted his face with kisses as she began a punishing grinding motion with her h.i.p.s. "I went to get my backpack. Saw your brother . . . and suddenly, my mind just kept seeing—"

"yuan." F.u.c.k. He stopped short of the bed, his heart growing cold even as he thrust into her hot depths.

"No," she m.o.a.n.e.d. "You. He was there for a second, but it wasn't right. I concentrated hard, and it was you."

Pressure filled his c.h.e.s.t cavity. A sudden, fierce instinct rose in him, a foreign and yet familiar urge. It didn't matter that her passion had been induced by a mind-seduction. It didn't matter that she was hardly in a position to know what she wanted from him. All that mattered was that he take her. Bond with her. Make her his mate.

"Mine," he growled into the slender column of her throat. "You're mine."

"Yes . . . oh, yes." Her voice throbbed with the promise of what she was saying. That she was his, that all his years of empty s.e.x with empty females was coming to an end, that he would no longer worry about becoming a mindless beast, that there would be no more loneliness for either of them.

The surge of emotion triggered a chain reaction inside him. Fire shot from the fingertips of his right arm, up the tribal pattern in his skin. The designs glowed red through the sheen of sweat that had broken out over his entire body.

Spinning, he pinned her to the wall. He pumped into her, lost to the sensation of the intimate slide of slick flesh on slick flesh. P.l.e.a.s.u.r.e whipped at him, and still, it wasn't enough. He needed to possess her, to have her in every way he could.

The thump of their bodies against the wall reverberated in the room, all the way to his balls. Words came out of his mouth, words he'd never heard and didn't even know the meaning of, but he no longer operated on a logical level. Something primal and raw demanded he do nothing but follow a natural course.

Reaching down, he opened his bedside drawer and fumbled for what he was looking for.

shu lan was whimpering and writhing and clenching him to her so hard that he had to wrench his spine to get the space between them he needed.