Page 52 of Infernal Bindings

“He has no motive,” I tell him.

“He has you.” Dad takes my hands and clasps them in his, pulling them away from my mouth. “Your baptism was already contentious. If the demon bound to you murdered a coven elder…”

I shake my head. Daemon wouldn’t do that—not to me and certainly not to himself. His eternal life is also on the line here, even more so than mine because his punishment starts in two days.

Unless he didn’t think he’d be punished, my subconscious whispers. Maybe he thought this would be looked over, like the dead Septem witches our coven has killed.

He did seem surprised that my mother summoned Salios. But still, killing Martha would be unnecessarily risky. “He wouldn’t,” I say, assuring myself as much as my father.

“If Daemon loves you,” Dad says, “I’m not sure there’s anything he wouldn’t do to keep you. It’s in an incubus’s nature to lie and manipulate. Earlier, I thought he might resent you if you weren’t baptized. But maybe trapping you both in Hell is the goal. He—”

I’m not listening to this. I’m not going to stand by and let Dad accuse Daemon when he’s not even around to defend himself.

“We shouldn’t have come,” I say again. God, maybe Christopher would have been the better choice to get help from. On wobbly legs, I stand from the chair and tug on the bond, calling Daemon to me. Faster than I can blink, he steps through the doors—steps, not teleports, because despite Dad’s insistence, he never left. I don’t wait for my father to say anything before stumbling toward Daemon and looping my arm through his.

“Take me back to your place?” I ask.

“Always.”

25

USING PROTECTION

Iknow my dad isn’t right.

Daemon isn’t trying to trap me in Hell; he offered my soul back and I said no.

Still, I hate that he’s planted that seed of doubt in me, that he’s trying to reframe thirteen years of history as something it isn’t. I’m not going to let him ruin this—whatever this is.

On the living room couch, Daemon massages my shoulders. I groan at how good it feels, my muscles screaming in agonized bliss.

“Do you want to tell me what you’re thinking about?” Daemon asks.

I lean backward, where he’s sitting crisscross applesauce behind me, and relax my head against his chest. The last thing I want to do is talk about my father right now.

“No, thank you,” I say.

He hits a tender spot that has me wriggling in his lap. As I squirm, something long and hard and hot presses against my ass—not two somethings. Apparently, only his demon form gets two cocks. Interesting.

We’re not at the club. There’s no excuse for either of us to touch each other besides wanting to, and I do want to. Every part of me is hypersensitive—I think from being fed on—and all I can do is picture tugging off his pants and getting bent over the couch. It would be incredibly easy. I’m wearing another Daemon-picked dress—long and dark maroon, with matching underthings. It’s modest, but easy access.

Slyly, I reach between us and stroke him.

Daemon goes instantly stiff, and not in the fun way. “We can’t. You need to recover.”

It’s been hours since Dad healed me. I feel fine. Mostly.

Normally, I don’t instigate, but getting face-fucked in front of a room full of demons has sucked the shy right out of me, at least for now. Rocking back on him, I feel him slide against me, and he lets out a throaty growl.

“Fuck, Annie. I…”

He grips my hips and repositions me, shoving me face-first into the soft couch. I’m ass up with his hand tangled in my hair. And then high heels click against the polished marble floor, and Daemon lets go of me like he’s touching a hot stove.

“Mom—”

“In my living room? Really?”

A blush warms my cheeks. I pull down my dress and scramble to sit a respectable distance away from him. Minerva scans me up and down, her gaze lingering on my face, my lips, my eyes. And I know she’s seeing what Dad saw earlier this morning. The need to hide behind Daemon—to make excuses for him—flares up. But she speaks before I can.