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Grabbing Rhun by the collar of his shirt, Tallak swiped his feet out from under him and followed him down, his fist making satisfying contact with the twatwaffle’s face. A block and a twist later, Tallak found himself in the opposite position with Rhun’s fists raining down on him.
And so it went as they rolled across the foyer, exchanging blows with bloodied teeth bared and feral snarls filling the air.
What felt like an hour later, they ended up lying on their backs on the floor, breaths coming fast, the scent of blood heavy in the room.
“Drink?” Rhun asked, his voice sounding distinctly nasal.
“Yeah.”
Tallak heaved himself up with a groan, his body aching in a hundred different places. A not unpleasant kind of exhaustion weighed down his limbs, his thoughts a bit clearer, his mind calmed down.
Well, hell. That damn bluotezzer had skillfully defused most of Tallak’s tension by goading him into a fight. Having a violent outlet for his confusion and frustration was just what he’d needed, and the irritating wankstain had known it. With grudging respect, he glared at Rhun’s back as he followed him into the kitchen—and squinted at the faint glow of fresh power around the other demon.
“Did you just feed on me?” Tallak snarled. Besides blood and pleasure, a bluotezzer also required pain as sustenance, a peculiarity of their rare species. And they couldn’t just go around soaking up people’s pain at random; they had to cause it.
Rhun threw an unrepentant look at him over his shoulder and made a chef’s kiss gesture. “Your pain is delicious, I must say. A faint note of tortured soul. My favorite.”
Tallak was about to lunge at Rhun for some more ass-kicking when the bluotezzer took out a glass from a cupboard, snatched a bottle of whiskey from a shelf, and settled down on a stool at the kitchen island. He poured Tallak a glass and pushed it toward him.
“So. Spill. What happened?”
Still fuming, Tallak sat down, too. Picking up the glass, he stared into the amber liquid inside as if it held the answers to all the uncertainties boiling in his gut, and then he knocked back the entire glass. The burn down his throat was a welcome addition to all his other pains and aches.
“I got the mating urge,” he said quietly.
Rhun paused in rearranging the decorative bowls on the island. “With Hazel?”
“Who fucking else?” he growled, grabbed the bottle, and poured himself another drink.
Brows raised, Rhun pursed his lips. With a considering look, he then asked, “You weren’t mated to Roana?”
It was strange, hearing the name of Basil’s birth mother after such a long time. No one who knew her was around anymore, all her fae relatives dead—some at Tallak’s hand—and he made it a point not to think about her often. The tangle of emotions attached to her was far too complicated for that.
He shook his head at Rhun’s question.
Some demon species had to be mated in order to be fertile, like bluotezzers. Some, like hæmingrs or incubi, could have offspring with any female, no mating bond required. That didn’t mean they couldn’t form a mating bond. It was an elusive thing, not really a necessity. A demon could live his whole life without ever mating with a female and be just fine—well, all except dukhokrads, the poor bastards. The males of that species could only climax after they mated. Until then—permanent blue balls.
No one could really explain what triggered the mating urge in demons. It was a complex mix of factors, most of them subconscious. In any case, it wasn’t something a demon just up and decided. Either it happened on its own, or it didn’t.
“You never got the urge with her?” Rhun asked.
Again Tallak shook his head. He hadn’t thought much of it back then. He’d loved Roana, but he’d been young and foolish in a lot of things, including the bright idea to attempt to live a life as a demon hidden among fae—a recipe for disaster, since they’d try to kill him on sight.
Or throw him in a dungeon and let him rot for twenty-six fucking years.
“But now with Hazel you felt it? Are you sure?”
Rhun’s question pulled him out of his dark thoughts. “Yeah,” he rasped. “I wanted to take her so hard and for so long that every inch of her skin would bear my scent. I wanted to make sure every male in a mile-wide radius would smell me on her and know she’s mine. And I wanted her to know it, too. To admit it.” He held up his hand, thumb and index finger less than an inch apart. “I was this close to biting her, drawing blood, and feeding her mine.” He knocked back another glass. “So yeah, it was the fucking mating urge.”
Rhun studied him for a few heartbeats. Then he got up and replaced the now empty bottle of whiskey with another.
“Okay,” he said, refilling Tallak’s glass. “So go ahead and do it.”
“Are you mental?” Tallak flashed his teeth. “You want me to force a mating on her?”
Rhun regarded him with a flat expression for a few seconds before he calmly picked up a spatula and smacked Tallak over the head with it.
“No, you moronic excuse for a demon,” Rhun said and placed the spatula back down again. “I’m saying, why not ask her to mate with you.”
