Releasing the Hunter

Chapter 11

After he got Ivy out of the lounge and into the stairwell, she perked up and did what needed to be done. Ronan knew she was operating on autopilot but maybe that’s what she needed to do to function and survive.

The cops had been swarming up the elevators and stairs when Ronan and Ivy popped out on the twentieth floor and picked up their bags, which had been cleverly hidden near the exit. They cleaned up a bit in a public washroom and wrapped coats over their ruined clothes before heading down in the elevator to the lobby. Still masquerading as the happily married rich couple, they swept through the lobby and out of the hotel without anyone calling foul.

They made it to the truck, parked several blocks away. Ronan took the keys from Ivy, put her in the cab and drove out of the downtown area. She needed a safe place to let go and to finally gather her shit together. So he opted for his place.

It was small, quiet, unassuming and so tucked out of the way that no one would ever even consider that he would live there. Plus it was heavily warded. Nothing could get in. He had some tricks that even Ivy didn’t know. Things he’d learned from demons themselves about the art of being invisible.

“Where are we going?” she asked after they were out of the downtown area.

“My place.”

“What if it’s compromised?”

“It won’t be. I fly under the radar. There isn’t a target on my back like there is with you. Every demon within a hundred miles of San Francisco is out for your blood. The Stroms have been killing demons for a long time.”

She didn’t say anything after that, just looked out the side window watching the world zoom by, contemplating her own personal demons, he suspected.

Another ten minutes passed, and she spoke again, still without looking at him. “What did Sallos mean, he was there at your birth?”

“Ten years ago, I was coming out of a bar, drunk and stupid, thinking I was tough shit, and I was jumped by two men in the alley. Except they weren’t men.”

She turned and looked at him.

“That was the night I was turned into what I am now. Sallos was there with the other demon. Sallos held me down as the other nearly ripped my throat out.” He pulled down the collar of his shirt to show her the six-inch scar that started in the middle of his neck and arced to the left over his thorax. “Instead of killing me, the other demon thought it would be fun to feed me his blood. I was helpless to stop it. It tore open its wrist and held it to my mouth. I tried to spit it out but Sallos made me swallow.”

She studied him for a moment. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t aware of how it worked. I didn’t know that’s what happened to you to become a cambion.”

He rubbed his face. His skin was clammy from talking about it. “Yeah, you can be born one or made one. Either way you have demon blood racing through your body. Demon blood that won’t ever go away.”

She stared at him for another few minutes and then turned back to the window. He thought he saw her shiver once, but it could’ve been from the cool night air circulating through the cab.

After another thirty minutes in the truck, Ronan pulled to the curb and parked. Ivy opened the door and slid out. He came around, grabbed their bags from the bed and led her to his four-story apartment complex.

Without speaking, they climbed the three flights of stairs to the third floor, then walked down the dimly lit corridor. Ronan unlocked his door, threw it open and gestured for her to enter.

His apartment was small and cramped, but it was home. At least it had been for the past year. He tended to move around a lot, as did most people who worked in the dark shadows of life. He wasn’t a hunter by trade. He had other qualities that suited him for other lines of work.

Ronan set their bags down near the worn but comfy sofa that dominated the living room. “Sit anywhere. I’ll get us some food. There’s a great Thai place on the corner.”

“I need to shower and change.”

He nodded. “You should probably let me look at those cuts on your hands and arms, too.”

She shrugged but didn’t say anything. He gestured to the short hall off the main room. “It’s the first door on your left. There are clean towels under the sink.”

She grabbed her bag and walked, head down, to the bathroom.

He was worried about her. The Ivy Strom he’d come to know in such a short period of time wouldn’t let anything crush her. She fought back on every front. On fronts she didn’t even need to battle. But this woman in his apartment was two steps away from being broken.

Although she was a means to an end for him, he couldn’t help the protective feelings surging through him. He wanted to go to her and soothe her, console her. Tell her that everything was going to be okay and that they’d find her brother. That it wasn’t how Sallos had described it. That Quinn hadn’t abandoned her to her fate.

But he knew on some level that Sallos was truthful. He had to be while compelled by the devil’s trap. But he also knew that demons had had millenniums of practice in manipulation. There was the truth and then there was the way a demon spun it.

Ronan went into the little kitchenette, opened one cupboard, took out a bottle of scotch and poured two short glasses. He downed one, then refilled the glass. Picking up the other, he walked the short corridor to the closed bathroom door.

He splayed his hand across the wood and leaned against it. He wished he could sense Ivy’s mood. Would she welcome a shoulder to lean on? Or would she hate him for it? He supposed she wasn’t all that fond of him anyway, so it wasn’t as if he’d lose much if he pressed the issue.

Taking a deep breath, he turned the knob on the door and went in.

Ivy was in the shower. The spray from the showerhead pounded down on her. She hadn’t bothered to pull the flimsy curtain around her and he watched as water rivulets sluiced over her flawless pale flesh. The steam from the hot water floated around her body, giving the illusion that she was hovering on a cloud.

She turned her head under the spray and looked at him. There was no anger, no fury in those eyes. He saw loss and pain and a vulnerability he’d never thought to see in her.

He knew he should’ve turned and walked out. The right thing to do would be to leave her to her sorrow. But he also knew he wasn’t going to.

He handed her the drink. “I thought you might need this.”

She took the glass and downed the alcohol in one gulp. She handed him back the glass, which he set on the sink.

He stared at her, feeling like a cad for drinking in his fill of her incredible body, but she made no move to cover herself or to pull the curtain shut.

“Do you want me to leave?” he asked, his voice tight with desire and other emotions he couldn’t quite label. Or maybe didn’t want to quite yet.

She shook her head, water droplets flying off her skin with the movement.

Ronan stripped off his shirt and tossed it to the floor. He then undid his pants and shucked them off, kicking them aside. He was naked underneath and aroused.

As he stepped into the shower next to her, his body slid up against hers. The muscles in his gut clenched at the slight contact.

Without words, she opened her arms to him and he settled his body against hers. She wrapped her hands behind his neck and found his mouth with fierce urgency. She kissed him hard, with frantic nibbles on his lips, and sucked at his tongue.

He wrapped his arms around her and let her take him the way she wanted, the way she needed. The control was hers. If he couldn’t give her a shoulder to cry on, he could give her this.

Breaking from the kiss, Ivy stepped out of the shower, pulling him out with her. She pushed him down onto the closed toilet. Before he could do anything, she was straddling his lap.

“Ivy, we—”

“Don’t talk. I don’t need any words. I just need this.”

Then she was kissing him again, her fingers buried in his hair, pulling on his head as she peppered kisses to his chin and down to his throat.

Wrapping his hands around her firm rear end, he lifted her up a little, then settled her back down onto the hot, hard length of his erection. The second he entered her, he was on fire. He was burning alive from the inside out. And when she started to move on him, at first slow and tortuous then gaining her rhythm and finally breaking into a frantic pace, Ronan thought he’d incinerate to ashes.

Ivy squeezed her eyes shut and grabbed onto his shoulders as she rode him hard. She’d never been so frenzied before when it came to sex. But the second she’d seen him framed in the open bathroom doorway she knew he was exactly what she needed. He was her perfect fix. To take the pain away. To take the thoughts and feelings of loneliness and abandonment from her heart. If only for a moment. It was enough, to trade her pain in for the rushing, surging, fiery passion she was fueling now, even though she knew the furious sizzling sensations wouldn’t last.

It was a temporary fix to a long-festering problem.

She dug her fingers in and rode him harder and faster. She opened her eyes and looked down into his face. He met her gaze and it was as fierce and hard as the feelings rippling inside her were. He was a strong man, Ronan. Strong enough for her. At least for now.

Leaning down, she found his mouth and kissed him. His hands streaked up her back and burrowed into her hair. Holding her head, he tilted her slightly and deepened the kiss. His tongue clashed against hers, no longer teasing. He nipped at her lips then moved down to her chin, to trail his tongue up and down her throat. He suckled on her skin, coaxing moans from her lips.

Quivers erupted in her thighs as she slammed down on him. The muscles in her belly tightened and she knew she was so close to coming. Wrapping her arms around his head, she pressed him to her breasts while pumping him fast and hard, almost remorseless in her movements. She was after only one thing. Release.

Release from her thoughts, release from her anger and pain.

She needed that freedom from her mind to stay sane.

Ivy slammed down on him once, twice, three more times until the orgasm exploded inside her. She cried out and dug her fingers into his scalp.

She could feel his hands on her hips, clutching her tight. So tight it almost hurt. But she took that pain and twirled it around into pleasure. She floated on it, as it spun her around and around. Her head was dizzy, and her heart thumped so hard she could barely breathe.

She tried to pull up away from him, but Ronan yanked her down and held her still, anchored to him as he followed her down into the sizzling-hot center of the storm.