Ride the Storm

by Karen Chance

  And then it hit, so hard and so tangible that it knocked me out of my budding hysteria and left me looking around for the source. It felt like a gust of wind, only there was no wind in here. There couldn’t be with no windows, and two closed doors. And even if there had been, it would have been cold and damp, like the night outside. While this felt like a breeze straight off a desert.

  But not one of ours.

  I glanced at Rosier, but all I saw was a lump in my discarded pack. But maybe I’d been wrong about him not being able to help. Because I’d felt something like this before, on another night, in another desperate situation. One in which Rosier had used his incubus powers to overwhelm my fear and panic, and . . . what had he called it? Enhance?

  I felt like laughing suddenly.

  What a completely inadequate word.

  I sank back down, but this time, the hard stones beneath me were as comfortable as a pillow, the cold-eyed fey were simply gone, as if they’d never existed, and the frigid, dusty hallway was filled with a languid heat, heavy and fragrant, like warm honey.

  And suddenly, this was just the easiest thing in the world.

  My hands unclenched and smoothed up the tautness of Pritkin’s stomach, feeling hard lines and soft hair, and muscles that jumped delightfully under my touch. I leaned in, pressing my lips to the clean, warm skin below his navel, and felt his heartbeat. I stayed there, mouthing that delicious piece of flesh for a moment, feeling it catch and give under my teeth, feeling him jerk. And then laved the little wound I’d made with my tongue, because there was no hurry, none at all. There was just this, just tasting the salt of him, feeling the warmth, enjoying the soft musk that perfectly complemented the perfume in the air.

  And that suddenly intensified, along with my hunger.

  I looked up. “Tell me if I do something you don’t like,” I whispered.

  He just looked back at me, almost bewildered, as if that had made no sense. And to an incubus, maybe it hadn’t. I held his eyes as I loosened the ties at his waist that parted at a touch, the fabric falling to the floor, to pool around his ankles.

  For a moment, I just knelt there, pausing in admiration of the sweet curve, the soft blush of the skin, the thick upward slant. I kissed the side, and felt him leap. Slid my lips along his length and watched him swell behind my touch. Let my tongue glide over the silken head and reveled in the sound he made.

  “Spread your legs,” I instructed softly, because he hadn’t moved, just kept looking at me with that same incredulous expression. But then the hard thighs moved apart, allowing me better access. And I took it, hands smoothing up tense legs to the taut muscles above, embracing him as I took him in.

  And he felt good, God, so good. And warm, and solid and alive. I let my lips go where they wanted, giving to him freely what the fey would have taken by force. But I must have done something wrong, because he made a sound like pain when my mouth finally closed over him.

  I looked up to see his head thrown back, his throat working convulsively. And yes, that looked like pain on his face. Or maybe not exactly pain, I thought, as he suddenly looked down, green eyes blazing into mine with an expression that made my stomach twist and my hands clench on his thighs.

  His body was silently urging me to hurry, but I didn’t listen. Instead, I let my hands cup the velvety skin farther back, discovering globes so soft, so warm, almost hot, and so heavy, that it was impossible not to roll them between my palms. So I did, and felt him tremble.

  I was, too, but I didn’t care this time. It was unimportant next to massaging the velvet of his body, gently at first, and then harder and rougher, feeling it tighten under my touch. Next to letting my tongue glide over the silken head, teasing the tender slit. Next to hearing him swear when I started to pull.

  And there was something about that sound that drove me the rest of the way into madness. That had me grabbing the taut, sleek mounds behind him, pulling him hungrily against me. That had me suddenly trying to take in all of him, every silken inch.

  It wasn’t remotely possible, but I found consolation when I pulled back, tasting the fullness of him, feeling him slide forever over my tongue. Until only the smooth head was still between my lips, allowing me to tease it, bathe it, suck it, suck it, suck it, until he was gripping my hair, was thrashing around, was staring down at me, wild-eyed and desperate, and very, very confused. As if he still had no idea what was happening.

  Isn’t it obvious? I wondered, and swallowed him back down.

  Electricity prickled over my skin, and the warm wind I’d been feeling abruptly increased, howling in my ears as something built in the background of my desire, something unexpected, something huge—

  That didn’t matter, because nothing mattered, except the power to make him shiver and shake and cry out, except the desperate sounds he made as I pushed a little farther each time, taking more of him than I ever had, taking everything, eagerly, hungrily, so hungrily.

  Until, finally, finally, I somehow held all of him, his complete length buried inside my warmth, my lips closing on the root of his body—

  And God, the sound he made!

  I looked up, meeting his eyes, and that electric tingle became a lightning burst, flashing across my vision. Something lifted my hair, tightened my body, sent goose bumps flooding over my skin. Something that was screaming toward us now, like a runaway train, or a tidal wave tearing toward a beach—

  “She’s calling power!” someone said, just as Pritkin cried out, just as the wave broke over our heads, just as it came thundering and roaring and crashing—

  And missing, because someone was dragging me away.

  “No!” I screamed, kicking and fighting. “No! Let me go. Let me finish—”

  But instead, the warm illusion shattered, disintegrating into a cold, cramped hallway, a guard’s arm around my waist, a snarling face in mine—

  And an explosion that took out the door the fey had been guarding, wards and all. And sent it hurtling down the corridor, like it was made of flimsy plastic. Until it slammed into two more guards coming this way and threw them off their feet.

  “You were right . . . about the fireball,” Pritkin said to me breathlessly. “Duck.”

  “What?”

  He pushed my head down and put a fist through the fey’s face behind me. At least, that was what it sounded like. I didn’t turn around to see, because I was being hauled through the door, but the restraining arm around my waist had gone limp and fallen away, so I assumed we wouldn’t be followed. That and the fact that I got a glimpse of the second guard, slumped against the wall as we ran over him.

  Of course it wasn’t what was behind us that was really the problem.

  A bunch more fey appeared at the end of the hall, and these were smarter. And quicker, because they dodged the fireball—the huge, corridor-filling fireball—that Pritkin flung at them like it was nothing. But the wall behind them didn’t.

  They threw themselves out of the way, just in time, diving back behind the perpendicular hall ahead. And the wall they’d just been standing in front of simply . . . disappeared. Which would have been great—if the barracks weren’t behind it.

  “Shit!” Pritkin said as a couple dozen fey looked up from cots and dice games, along with a guy with a towel wrapped around his waist, like he’d just come from a bath, his hair still dripping—

  And then flying, when he dove for a weapon.

  “Shit!” Pritkin said again, and shoved me through a wall.

  I was confused until I realized that there had been a doorway to our right, one I hadn’t seen because my eyes had about a thousand other things to look at. And then another thousand as we ran through a series of dim, connected rooms, with soft draperies and pierced screens and low couches and delicate glassware. But no exits, which was a problem, considering the army of little cat feet pounding behind us.

  “Shit!” P
ritkin said, a bit more frantically.

  “I didn’t think you knew that word,” I gasped, because that hadn’t been a translation. And because he’d confused it for my name, the last time we were here.

  “Figured it out,” he said, and slammed us back against a wall.

  This one didn’t have a door, or if it did, we missed it. It did have a tapestry, a rich, vibrant thing in mostly greens, a hunting scene. I knew that without turning to look, because an enchanted deer had just scampered up my arm. And then another and another, a whole herd flowing across my body, fleeing a hunter. Symbolism that was not lost on me when a mob of fey suddenly appeared in the door, weapons out and eyes flashing.

  Or no, I realized, it wasn’t their eyes. It was the overhead lamp we must have hit on the way in, which was swaying, swaying, swaying on its little chain, telling them we were here or just had been. But they didn’t know which, so they spread out, beginning a search of this room and the ones around it.

  They didn’t see us, because Pritkin’s camouflage was that good. Hell, it was better than good, to the point that I could barely make out my own limbs unless I moved. And even then it wasn’t easy, since the tapestry was already doing that. But the rooms weren’t that big, and there were too many fey, and we had to be out of time.

  All of which was suddenly less of a problem than the return of that dragging warmth.

  It hit me like a blow, as strong as if it had never left, and maybe it hadn’t. All I knew was that I wanted—needed—his hands on me. Not his arms, which were already around me, but his hands, rough and callused and—I picked them up and guided them where I wanted them to go.

  God, I thought, as that grip took me, clenching unconsciously, making me moan. And then press back against him as the callused grip turned into caresses, which turned to strokes, which turned to kneads, and then back into clenches again. Before one hand pushed down my front and clasped something lower. And then he was stroking there, too, in a way that had me spreading my legs, had me writhing back against him, had me biting my lip so the groans in my throat stayed behind my teeth.

  “What. Are. You. Doing?” Pritkin asked, which seemed a little strange, all things considered. But his voice was a hiss in my ear, and, oh God, that didn’t help.

  “What?”

  “Did you cast a spell?”

  “No. I—no.” I was pretty sure. Like I was pretty sure we’d left Rosier back in the hall, so this couldn’t be him. Could it? I didn’t know. I didn’t know anything right now, not with him pressing against me from behind, still hard, still eager, still—

  God!

  A fey came closer, checking behind a curtain, but I barely noticed, because something had just slipped between my legs from behind. Not inside, not yet, but he was warm, so warm, and he was right there. And moving now, stutteringly, haltingly, as if he was trying to stop, as if he realized how crazy this was.

  And yet, like me, he didn’t seem to be able to.

  “We can’t do this,” Pritkin whispered urgently.

  “Okay.”

  “We can’t. I can’t . . . maintain the illusion . . . if I’m . . . distracted.”

  “Okay,” I agreed. And then bit my bottom lip when the strokes suddenly became longer and sweeter, rubbing along the full length of me from behind, like his fingers were still doing in front. And the twin torture was more than I could stand, ripping a soft moan from my lips before his head came down, silencing me with his mouth.

  This . . . was not a huge help, I thought wildly. Because now there were three things stroking me, as his tongue joined the other two sources of madness, curling around mine, caressing the inside of my mouth and eating the sounds I was making, because I couldn’t seem to stop. Not with shivers and shudders and then all-out quakes causing me to buck hard back against him, causing him to slip, not inside but against me, against the full length of me, and God, that was almost as good!

  “Your name,” he gasped as I shook violently.

  “What?”

  “Your name!” It was urgent. “Your real one!”

  I tried to concentrate, but the question seemed irrelevant and anyway, my brain was busy: tightening my thighs, clenching down, making him work for it. I began to ride him on the outside of my body, and felt him shiver. Arched back against him, like a cat, and heard him groan. And then I was the one shivering, and shuddering, and losing all control as he started hitting that spot, that oh, so sensitive spot, with every stroke, his hands tightening on my body as the friction between us built and built and—

  And now his groans were flooding my mouth, spilling over along with my own, and that was bad, but I couldn’t remember why, and didn’t care, didn’t care, and then someone was yelling and someone was grabbing my arm and—

  “Your name!”

  And then nothing.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  I woke up dry-mouthed and fuzzy-brained. With no idea where I was, or why I was lying facedown on cold stone, in a small puddle of drool. Not that this was exactly a first.

  What was a first, at least lately, was that I didn’t feel like crap.

  I waited for the usual pain/exhaustion/nausea combo to kick in, only it didn’t appear interested. Instead, I felt like I had at Caleb’s, after taking the Circle’s special joy juice: distant acknowledgment of the body’s dissatisfaction, but nothing screaming at me. Nothing at all.

  Well, except that I was freezing.

  Something was over my face. I pulled it off to discover that my slave outfit had been tossed on top of me. It was thin and fairly useless against the cold, but I put it on anyway while checking out the latest version of hell I’d ended up in.

  Only to discover that it was just a cell.

  I waited, crouched on cold stone, for the punch line. For the vicious ward about to fry me or the pack of slavering dogs about to attack me or the insane prisoner about to decide that I was a threat. But nada.

  Just a cold stone block of a room, some straw on the floor, a couple buckets—one filled with water—and a pallet that nobody had bothered to ensure that I landed on.

  I stared at it.

  It even had a little pillow.

  For a minute, I just stayed there, processing that, along with the fact that I wasn’t even tied up. Then I got to my feet and walked to the door. There was a small, high window in it, like it had been made for someone a lot taller than me. But by pulling myself up by the bars, I could just make out a narrow hall with more flickering lanterns.

  And the fact that nobody had even bothered to post a guard.

  I was starting to feel strangely . . . neglected.

  However, they had searched me, and they’d done a thorough job. Because everything was gone: Billy’s necklace, Rosier and his pack, even my bright-eyed chameleon. I guessed the fey had seen something like it before.

  But not something like my evil dark-magic bracelet.

  The chain of interlocking knives around my wrist made a soft chink, chink when I jumped back down. The fey must have taken it, too, but, as always, it had returned. Meaning that at least one part of the plan had worked. I just didn’t know where the witches were, or where Pritkin was, or what had happened to Rosier, or what was happening in general.

  But other than that, everything was fine.

  I rolled my eyes at myself and decided to go find out.

  “Do you think, just for once, we could not have a hissy fit?” I whispered to my knives. “I need you to stab the lock. Not the nearest guard, not another prisoner’s butt. Just the lock.”

  I got a definite spoilsport vibe back, which I ignored.

  And then I remembered something else from the debacle at Gertie’s.

  “And do it quietly.”

  To my surprise, they did. Well, more or less. The lock was stabbed a dozen times in a few seconds by a couple of ghostly knives doing a jackhammer impressi
on. And while it wasn’t exactly quiet, it also wasn’t loud enough to bring anybody running.

  Assuming anybody was there, since I’d yet to see a soul.

  I creaked the door open—carefully, because this was too easy. Maybe the fey were testing me? Maybe this was some sort of trap?

  Or maybe, I decided, as I walked unmolested down the hall, peering into other, empty cells, they just didn’t worry about you if you weren’t at least part fey. So far, it was the only thing I liked about them. Arrogance like that had saved my ass more than once.

  And it was about to save Rosier’s.

  I peeked around a wall from about knee height, then abruptly jerked back. But a glimpse had been enough: Rosier, in a cage, surrounded by fey, being poked at with sticks. And with the haunted look of a puppy in the middle of a bunch of unsupervised toddlers.

  Or, more accurately, like a specimen in a very strange zoo, because he wasn’t the only thing locked up. Cats, birds, even an extra-large rat were in similar cages, arrayed along one wall, making me realize why Pritkin had made that comment about my familiar. Apparently, witches in this era actually used them.

  Who knew?

  “Kill it and be done,” one of the guards said. “It’s disgusting.”

  “That would be a grave mistake,” Rosier said quickly, and then yelped when he was poked again.

  “I told you to shut up,” a different fey ordered.

  “But you want me to talk. I’ve told you, she’s almost powerless without me—”

  “An even better reason to end your miserable life.”

  “No! No, no, no!” Rosier said, making me tense up.

  And peer around the corner again. The room they were in was just the space where a couple corridors intersected. It had been dressed up with a few cabinets and the table Rosier’s cage was sitting on, allowing it to serve as both checkpoint and break room. But the fey were the real deal, three of them and bristling with weapons, not that they looked like they expected to use them.