Chapter 2: The Anchor and the Abyss
Jerissa pulled back with a wet gasp, her hand still wrapped around the base of him, her lips swollen and slick. Her pink eyes had gone nearly black, and not from the succubus. Something else. Something that looked a lot like hunger but tasted like want.
"Up," she said. "Now."
Zane didn't need to be told twice.
He caught her under the arms and hauled her to her feet. Her legs were shaking. Hell, his were too, but he wasn't about to mention it. The wall was right there, slick with condensation, and he pressed her back against it before she could change her mind or come to her senses or do any of the other things that would ruin this.
She wrapped her legs around his hips like she'd been doing it for years. Her heels locked behind his lower back. Her arms looped around his neck. Her bracelets chimed against his shoulder blades, a small, tinny sound swallowed by the hiss of steam and the pound of his own heartbeat.
"Zane." His name came out of her like a warning and a plea at the same time. "Please."
"I've got you."
He positioned himself with one hand, the other braced against the wall beside her head. The runes on his forearm flickered blue, pulsing in time with his breathing. He could still feel the succubus inside her — coiled at the base of her spine like a snake waiting to strike. But it was smaller now. Weaker. Scared.
Good.
He pushed into her.
Jerissa's whole body went rigid. Her nails dug into his shoulders, carving half-moons into the ink, and a sound tore out of her throat that was half French and half something older than language. Her head fell back against the tile with a dull thud, and her eyes squeezed shut, and for one terrible second Zane thought he'd hurt her.
Then she rolled her hips.
"Move," she breathed. "Move, move, move—"
He moved.
The first thrust knocked the breath out of both of them. The second made her scream — not loud, but sharp, a bitten-off sound that she tried to swallow. The third and fourth and fifth blurred together, a rhythm that built fast and hard and desperate, water slapping against tile, skin slapping against skin, her bracelets ringing like tiny bells with every impact.
The succubus's residue surged.
Zane felt it the moment it happened. A spike of psychic energy, cold and sharp, shooting up from the base of her spine and trying to hijack the pleasure before it could fully form. It wanted to twist this. Corrupt it. Turn her climax into a feeding frenzy, drain her dry, leave nothing behind but a husk.
Not on his watch.
He pulled on his magic, dragged it up from whatever deep well it lived in, and pushed it into her through every point of contact. His chest against hers. His hands on her hips. His mouth at her throat. The space where their bodies joined, where he was buried inside her, where the succubus had made its last stand.
The runes on his back flared bright enough to cast shadows on the opposite wall.
Jerissa's eyes flew open.
"What are you—" She gasped, arching against him, her whole body bowing like a drawn bow. "Mon Dieu, Zane, what are you doing to me—"
"Burning it out."
"It is—" Her voice cracked. Her nails dragged down his back, leaving fire in their wake. "It is working. Keep going. Do not stop. Do not—"
He didn't.
Each thrust pushed more magic into her, a slow, deliberate flood of power that met the succubus's residue head-on and refused to yield. He felt it fight back. Felt it claw at her insides, try to sink deeper, try to find some untouched corner of her mind where it could hide and wait for another chance.
No chance. Not tonight.
He drove deeper. Harder. The steam swirled around them like something alive, and the fluorescent lights above flickered, buzzed, went dark for half a second before sputtering back to life. His runes pulsed in time with his heartbeat, with his thrusts, with the ragged rhythm of her breathing.
Jerissa's legs tightened around him.
Her hands slid up from his shoulders to his face, cupping his jaw, forcing him to look at her. Her eyes were wild. Her lips were parted. Her auburn hair was plastered to her cheeks and throat in wet strands that made her look like something from a Pre-Raphaelite painting.
"I am close," she whispered. "I am so close. But it is fighting me. It does not want me to—"
"Let it fight." He pressed his forehead to hers, never breaking rhythm. "I've got you. Let go."
"I cannot—"
"You can." He pushed another wave of magic into her, felt it slam into the succubus's residue like a battering ram. "I'm right here. Let go."
Her eyes searched his face. Looking for lies. Looking for doubt. Looking for any reason to hold back, to keep fighting, to stay in control.
She must not have found one.
Because she let go.
The first wave hit her like a freight train. Her body convulsed around him, muscles clenching, back arching so hard her spine cracked. And then—
The psychic backlash detonated.
Every light in the locker room shattered at once. Glass exploded outward from the fixtures, raining down in glittering shards that caught the blue glow of his runes before they hit the flooded floor. The mirrors along the far wall cracked in spiderweb patterns, spreading from the center outward, each fracture line glowing faintly pink for half a heartbeat before fading.
The shower stalls rattled. The pipes groaned. Somewhere in the building, a fire alarm stuttered and died.
Zane felt the succubus's residue die with it.
It didn't go quietly. It screamed — a psychic shriek that slammed into his shields and nearly took them down. It clawed at Jerissa's mind, at her soul, at anything it could reach in its final moments. It fought like a cornered animal, desperate and vicious and utterly, completely outmatched.
Then it was gone.
Just—gone. Like a candle snuffed out. Like a bad dream that evaporates the moment you open your eyes.
Jerissa collapsed against him.
Her legs went slack. Her arms fell from his neck. Her whole body sagged like a puppet with cut strings, and if Zane hadn't been braced against the wall, they both would have ended up on the floor.
He caught her. Of course he caught her.
He lowered them both to the flooded tile, his back against the wall, her body cradled in his lap. Water soaked through his skin, cold now, washing away the last traces of demon blood and sweat and steam. The shattered glass glittered around them like fallen stars. The air smelled like ozone and copper and something else — something clean.
Something finished.
Jerissa stirred against his chest.
"Did it work?" Her voice was hoarse. Barely a whisper.
"Yeah." He pressed his lips to her temple, not quite a kiss, just—contact. Reassurance. Proof that he was still there. "It's dead."
She was quiet for a long moment. Her hand came up, fingers tracing the runes on his chest with a touch so light he barely felt it. Her bracelets had stopped their chiming. They lay still against her wrists, dull silver in the darkness.
"I thought I was going to die," she said.
"Me too."
"That is not very reassuring."
"I'm not very good at reassuring." He shifted, tucking a strand of wet hair behind her ear. "I'm better at hitting things."
A laugh bubbled out of her — small and broken and real. It turned into a sob halfway through, and then she was crying, silent tears sliding down her cheeks and dripping onto his chest. He held her through it. Didn't say anything. Didn't try to fix it. Just held her, one hand splayed across her back, the other tangled in her hair, while the water cooled around them and the shattered glass glittered and the dark pressed in on all sides.
When the tears finally stopped, she pulled back just far enough to look at him.
"Your eyes are glowing," she said.
"They do that."
"It is very distracting."
"I'll try to control myself."
She laughed again. This time it didn't turn into a sob. Her hand came up to his face, fingers tracing his jaw, his cheekbone, the corner of his mouth. Her expression was soft in a way he'd never seen before — not guarded, not clever, not performing. Just open. Just her.
"Thank you," she said.
"You don't have to—"
"I do." She pressed her thumb to his lips, silencing him. "You saved my life. You did not have to. You could have called for Patel. You could have walked away. You could have—" She paused. Swallowed. "You could have taken advantage. You did not."
"That's not who I am."
"I know." Her eyes met his, steady and sure. "That is why I came to you."
The words settled between them, heavy with meaning neither of them was ready to unpack. Zane looked at her — really looked at her — and saw something he hadn't noticed before. Not the psychic. Not the teammate. Not the woman who argued with him about comma placement and kept a thermos of tea in the van and laughed at his terrible jokes with that stupid, beautiful laugh.
Just Jerissa. Difficult, brilliant, impossible Jerissa. Sitting in his lap in a flooded locker room, naked and vulnerable and looking at him like he was something worth looking at.
"I should probably get you to the med bay," he said.
"Probably." She didn't move.
"And we should probably figure out what the hell to tell Marcus."
"Definitely." She still didn't move.
"And we should probably put some clothes on."
"Mm." She tilted her head, considering. "In a minute."
He laughed. A real laugh, the kind that came from somewhere deep in his chest and caught him by surprise. "You're going to be the death of me."
"Non." She smiled, small and wicked and unmistakably her. "I am going to be the best thing that ever happened to you. But that is a conversation for another night."
She rose on unsteady legs, pulling him up with her. Glass crunched under their feet. Water dripped from the ceiling in a slow, steady rhythm. The locker room was a disaster — dark and shattered and flooded — and they were both going to have to answer for it.
But Zane found, as he watched Jerissa bend to retrieve her discarded clothes, that he didn't much care.
She caught him looking. Raised an eyebrow.
"Something you want to say, mon beau?"
"Yeah." He grabbed his towel from the floor, wringing it out with a flick of his wrist. "Your accent gets thicker when you're tired."
She stared at him. Then she laughed — that melodic, ridiculous, beautiful laugh — and threw her wet shirt at his face.
"You are impossible."
"Part of my charm."
"Keep telling yourself that."
They dressed in the dark, bumping into each other, stepping on shattered glass, water sloshing around their ankles. Somewhere in the building, alarms were finally starting to sound again, muffled voices shouting questions neither of them wanted to answer.
Jerissa paused at the door. Her hand found his in the dark, fingers lacing together like it was the most natural thing in the world.
"Zane?"
"Yeah?"
"Next time," she said, her voice soft but steady, "we are doing this somewhere with a bed."
He squeezed her hand.
"Deal."