“I don’t do it for the money.”

Archer threw Rake a mocking look. “No? For the kicks then?”

“It has its moments.” Rake drew him into his arms and kissed him, a light, feathery brush of lips, more will-o’-the-wisp than caress. At the snap of electricity, Archer laughed, putting fingers up to his mouth. Rake laughed too, drawing him back again, brushing the soft curls aside to nuzzle him. Archer’s breath caught. He expelled it shakily as Rake’s hot, wet tongue delicately rimmed the shell of his ear. He shivered, tried to move away, but Rake held him fast. His tongue rasped leisurely over the tips of Archer’s ears.

“You know about the ears thing?” a voice that sounded too weak and breathy to be Archer’s own inquired faintly. Outside, he’d put it down to chance, but this was too deliberate for chance.

Rake’s breath gusted in a little laugh. “I know all about the ears thing.” Those heated, moist words seemed to travel right into Archer’s brain, make a sharp left, and arrow down to his groin. The fierce sweetness of his body’s reaction nearly made him dizzy.

He wrapped his arms around Rake’s neck and kissed him hungrily back. Rake met that demand with voracious enthusiasm. Archer tasted copper, ambrosia, cardamom, and something smoky. Coherent thought fled.

He was unsure of how they got to the bedroom or where along that journey he shed his clothes, but eventually he took hazy note that he was lying naked in a low bed with black silk sheets. Glowing blue lanterns with inked butterflies swung overhead. The butterflies threw giant winged shadows across the walls.

Rake’s big hands caught him by the hips, settling Archer on the smooth sheets. He leaned over him, a dark figure in the unreliable light. His eyes gleamed as careful fingers probed the entrance to Archer’s body. Archer moaned, squirming. He was no virgin, but his muscles were resilient and passage would be tight given the astonishing size of the bull-like cock between Rake’s muscular thighs.

In fact...

Archer’s eyes widened. In his entire life he’d never seen a sexual member quite like that one. Not in the flesh.

He opened his mouth, but Rake’s fingers, slick with his own hot pre-ejaculate, moved inside him, causing the strangest tingling. Archer murmured wonderingly and then sucked in a sharp breath as Rake guided himself into his body.

Rake took the sound that tore out of Archer’s throat as encouragement and he wasn’t far wrong, though Archer was transfixed for a second or two with shock. He’d never experienced that peculiar sensation, that mix of stinging and satisfaction—like needles dipped in bliss were floating through his veins and everywhere they stuck came a flash of sheer delight—but he’d read about it. The ultimate one-handed read, in fact. He cried out and Rake stopped at once.

Archer panted, “You’re…not…Canadian, are you?”

Rake’s eyes turned red. His lips parted in a smile and Archer could see the glint of his sharp incisors. Terrifying. Beautiful. “Don’t you recognize the real thing?”

Oh yes, he recognized the real thing. “Demon?” It came out as an inquiry, although that wasn’t the real question.

“And you with all those naughty postcards?” Rake laughed down at him and the barbed cock pushed deeper into Archer’s body, releasing more of the tiny, felicitous pinpricks.

Hearing that rough, purring laugh, Archer drove back, impaling himself deeply, and it was Rake’s turn to catch his breath.

Green and gold sparks danced off Archer’s skin and crackled around them. Rake jerked his hips, laughing silently as Archer cried out and arched up. Rake said something in Babylonian. Lover? Lovely? Tiny flames leaped in the black-red void of his eyes.

They began to rock, the moon pulling the tide, the tide grabbing for the shore, the melting sand giving way with a final tug at the roots of the mountains...

“Wait. More. I need more.” Archer groped for Rake’s hand, feeling the callused warmth of his smooth skin, the curve of his long razor-sharp nails as he placed Rake’s hand on his groin. “Hold me.”

“Like this?” The voice was no longer remotely human, but Archer no longer feared disappointment. No longer feared anything at all.

He wrapped the long fingers around his rigid cock, molding them into a fist. To his delighted relief, Rake slipped easily into the rhythm, and Archer writhed with pleasured abandon, the entire experience heightened by the proximity of the dangerous talons to his tender flesh.

Rake was teasing him now, varying the speed and strength of his thrusts, using hands and mouth with unholy skill until Archer was sobbing, his entire body shimmering green-gold as he swung out into the distance suspended between agony and ecstasy.

Time paused.

“Don’t leave me…like this!” Archer groaned. At least he meant to add the “like this.” Fortunately his naked little plea was lost in Rake’s snarl as he plunged into him, driving Archer toward the peak, pumping his rigid cock in the same rhythm. Archer felt all semblance of control slip away and he squirmed and twisted, trying to draw that indescribable sensation more deeply into himself. Rake’s mouth found his ear and he began to lick the upswept point. Something ignited, blazed; every muscle in Archer’s body locked. Rake bucked hard into him. It was like being filled with burning glass and at the same time it felt so impossibly, terrifyingly wonderful that Archer feared he would lose what little mind he had left.

Rake sucked hard on Archer’s ear and Archer screamed. He felt himself plummeting like a fallen star, giving off sparks as he dropped like a rock into the roaring red light that was Rake.

***

It seemed a long time later when the red glare faded and the world took shape once more. Lanterns swayed gently above a comfortable bed, blue hearts pulsing. Limp and trembling, Archer lay quietly as Rake softened and slid out of his body. He could see the glitter of his own drying release everywhere: lamps, sheets, Rake’s chest as well as his own, marked with it.

“Well, Puck? Better than picture postcards?” Rake’s voice was human again, though gruff from his shouts.

“Better.” Archer laughed shakily. “Did you just call me a rude name?”

Rake made a dismissive noise, gathered him close to his massive chest. His claws had retracted once more and his hands were gentle. Disarmingly gentle. “Whither wander you?”

Shakespeare. A poetry-spouting demon. A demon Irregular. Archer sniffed in absent disapproval. He was still considering the first question. He felt like something consumed by fire, hollowed out and only the shell left. Whatever he had imagined…Well, imagination could not do this reality justice.

Rake nuzzled his cheek and temple, but, mercifully, was careful to avoid Archer’s ears.

“How can you be…?” Archer began finally, troubled.

“A demon?”

“A badge.”

It was a moment or two before Rake said vaguely, “If you can’t beat them, join them.”

Archer raised his head, trying to read the truth in the midnight shadows. There was only the gleam of eyes, the gleam of teeth.

“You don’t feel…”

“What?”

“Divided loyalties?”

“No. The mortal and immortal realms must work together or all will perish.”

Propaganda. But there was truth in it all the same. Archer had not lived among humans for nearly a century without noticing that for all their fragility they could do a lot of damage. Even without the interference of humans, the other realms had a knack for self-destruction. Remembering how Greine the Usurper had put down the Irish sidhe revolts only too well, he shivered.

Rake cradled him closer, muttering, “Sleep now, little imp.”

Archer’s smile was wry. So the legends were true in that much at least. Demons were soft and sentimental after sex. With the lovers they didn’t kill, anyway. His body still rang with little thrums of pleasure. He humored Rake, snuggling closer still, hearing the muted boom of the eight-chambered demon heart, but his mind continued to flit from thought to thought like a bee sipping nectar.