Finally, she turned and showed her face.
Horrified, I stared back at myself.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Azazel continued to kiss me, propelling my consciousness through time and space.
A Mayan pyramid on Jaguar Hill rose before me. A powerful, olive-skinned priestess lay prostrated on a stone altar. She turned her face toward me. Once again, I stared back at myself. The king sliced the woman’s throat, believing Quetzalcoatl would be pleased with the gift of her life and magic, therefore blessing the Mayans with a safe and fruitful existence.
Next, I saw myself dancing as a slave girl during the height of the Roman Empire, a strange medallion pendant nestled between my ample breasts, the power of it surrounding me in an invisible cloud. Other images flooded my mind. Pictures of battles and dying men of various lands pelted my mystical eye. The metallic aroma of blood assailed my senses, but gratitude filled me when the images, sounds, and odors dissipated.
Once more, I stood in the middle of the dirt road that snaked through a village. The big, black-armored rider sat astride an ebony warhorse as he pounded toward me. I whirled, racing away from the yellow-haired town harlot who cowered against the well. The warrior snatched me up and draped me across the saddle as if I was no more than a slain rabbit. The next vision showed him pushing me back on a bed covered in furs, the power of his love for me so intense I cried out in pain and loss as the image shifted into another.
Breaking the kiss, Azazel growled, “The White King will not have you.” He moved one hand up to my hair and gripped a handful of it so tightly tears pricked my eyes. “He’s interfered enough. You belong to “me” now.”
He rose slightly, and, palm down and fingers splayed, he waved his hand over my form. The top and bra I’d been wearing vanished and re-appeared on the sand next to me.
“NO!” I moved to slap my hands over my exposed breasts, but he caught them and pinned them over my head.
He scooted down my body and latched on to one of my nipples with his mouth. Fire seared my nerve endings. Heat raced through my veins with such intensity I remained powerless, unable to even moan let alone resist.
“That is but a taste of how it will feel when I consummate our union,” he said as he raised his head. “First, I must finish awakening your memories.” His mouth connected with mine again.
I hurtled through darkness. Brilliant stars streaked through it. I wanted to see more of my White King, wanted to learn why our love had ended so tragically.
But how did I know that? Was the answer locked somewhere in my subconscious?
“Just remember you belong to me now.”
Another year slipped into my mind...1066.
Solomon stood next to a roaring hearth. A long, embroidered robe flowed over his back and swept the edges of the floor. His flaxen locks hung around his shoulders, the color ghostly in the firelight. He turned and looked at me.
“I must lead this battle,” he said. “Edward insisted that if anything should ever happen to him, I am to defend his lands until the proper king comes to power.”
“It is you who is destined to rule England,” I replied. “You know that. The king thought highly of you and kept you in his confidence. He even gave you a stronghold of your own to govern within his realm.”
“I am no king,” he said with a heavy sigh. “I only defend what belonged to my friend and brother.”
“You are the rightful heir!” I insisted. “Shirk your guise of being in his service and reveal that you are Edward’s half brother.”
“I cannot.”
“Why?”
“The people will never accept a king who is as white as a spirit howling upon the moors.” He strode across the chamber, his robe stirring the reeds upon the stone floor, and pulled me to my feet.
His gaze met mine, and my soul leapt in response at the love I saw within his eyes.
“The people are content with me defending their homes, but they will never accept me as anything other than their warrior.” He threaded his fingers into my hair and brushed my lips with the softest and most poignant of kisses. “As long as I have your love and this fortress around us,” he said with emotion thick in his voice, “I am happy to defend Edward’s lands until a better man than I can sit upon my brother’s throne.”
“I fear for your life.” Tears trickled over my cheeks. “What if you don’t return to me?”
“If I die, I will find you, my love. I promise.” My White King enfolded me in his arms and hugged me tightly. “Bring your yellow-haired friend here to stay with you while I am gone. She shall keep you company until I return.”
“But the Sons of God cometh—”
“I shall fight them for you.”
“Now you understand how you and the White King have crossed paths again.”
Azazel palmed one of my breasts, reminding me I still laid prone on the beach. Against my will I responded by parting my legs.
“You had your time with the White King, and now it’s my turn.”
He kissed me harder, his tongue probing my mouth. Desire heated the depths of my muscles and bones. I groaned in ecstasy, and he eagerly swallowed the noise.
Suddenly I stood upon the shore where I always saw the huge monolith. Lightning ripped the sky open, the colors deep crimson, volcanic-yellow and silver. Vaguely, I was aware of the wind roaring across Key West’s shoreline as Azazel kissed and caressed me. Hadn’t I seen the same type of lightning illuminating the sky behind him earlier?
Laughter rumbled through his body, and his words filled my mind. “They will be here soon.”
Back on the channel’s windswept shore, I watched the smoke monsters and their riders as they bore down upon me from across an expanse of cold, slate-gray water. Next to me, the woman who had always accompanied me in my vision kneeled upon the sand in a heavy, dark cloak. This time she pushed back the cowl, and I saw her face—Alice. Surprise whispered in my mind. So, she had been telling the truth.
“Watch as Hardrada of Norway and Harold Godwinson, King Edward’s advisor, battle with the White King. This is how you lost the man you loved.”
But I still love him!
“NO!” His kiss overwhelmed my senses, absorbed my will. “YOU ARE MINE NOW, NOT HIS!”
A cry to charge the shoreline echoed over the water. Hardrada of Norway and his Viking warriors leapt from their smaller boats and sloshed onto the beach, weapons drawn and shields up. Blood sprayed in the air, leaving the aroma of copper in its wake. It dripped from swords, maces, daggers, and spears, and spilled upon the ground or splattered across shields and the chain-mailed breasts of the warriors’ massive equines. Men screamed in agony and shouted battle cries. Warhorses stomped upon wounded men, grinding their guts and bones into the moist dirt, and other steeds bit and kicked, felling those fighting in the infantry.
Behind them, the Sons of God approached on their steeds of smoke and vengeance. They soared closer, their eyes aglow with feral light, their mounts morphing from one beast into another. As the mortals’ battle raged, the sound of metal rang out over the terrain, and I raised my hands to the sky. Fire erupted from my palms, eyes, and mouth. The woman at my side chanted loudly, and her power flowed into me, aiding me in my quest to send the Sons of God back to their prison in that god-awful realm of death and decay.
Azazel led his minions inland. He tossed a lightning bolt at me, but I absorbed it and used it to channel more power. The rogue angels hit a semi-transparent wall of energy. The smoke creatures shrieked and roared with frustration and pain as the angels hurled insults, threats and profanities at me.
“Join us!” the Azazel of that time called to me. He reined in his charger of swirling smoke, a creature half demonic panther, half freakish falcon. “You are a comely woman and shall pleasure me greatly. Together we can rule Earth.”
“Never!” I hissed and summoned all my power.
First one fissure opened in the firmament, followed by the other amongst the twinkling stars and gal
axies. The tornado emerged to whisk the angels away, the fissures closing after them with resounding booms that knocked the fighting warriors to their feet.
I fell to the beach where the woman cradled me against her bosom. Together, we watched as the White King cleaved Hardrada open with his sword. The king’s adversary fell dead upon the rocky shoreline, his innards spilling forth.
“Know how the White King was defeated,” Azazel ground his cock against the apex of my hips, “and see why you and I will be joined forever.”
I sighed in ecstasy and bucked my hips under him.
“Yes...yes...that’s it...”
He slid his tongue along the seam of my lips and transported me down the shore to Hastings, England, where Harold Godwinson II and his forces fought the defensive against the Norman infantry, both sides striving to win King Edward’s throne. The Normans launched a barrage of arrows. The English marched forward, their shields up for protection. Once the arrows stopped falling, the White King charged through on an ebony steed with furry, pail-sized feet. He brandished a broadsword with a handle wrapped in black leather and studded with turquoise.
The sword hanging over the fireplace in Alice’s living room!
“An individual’s belongings can travel through time to find their owners. How sad that Solomon is now a nothing, a nobody.”
I ignored his jibe.
Knocked from his horse by another rider, the White King scrambled to his feet a few yards away from Harold. He battled one-on-one with an adversary, but as he pushed his sword through the man’s gullet, and then shoved him off his blade, he looked up to see an archer siting on Harold II.
Wayne Blacktree!
“Ah, yes. That human has been a useful tool in doing our bidding, but the ungrateful wretch had a change of heart after St. Augustine and turned on us to join forces with that witch, Alice.”
The archer who resembled Wayne let the arrow fly, and my lover leapt into the air to block it.
The pointed missile skipped off the edge of his shield and shot through the air penetrating Harold’s eye. The would-be king of England slumped backward to the ground. Racing to his side, the White King scooped him up in his arms, but Wayne saw his chance and planted another arrow in the back of my lover’s neck. Gurgling, blood spurting, the White King fell over Harold’s body.
No, no, no...! Loss flew through me, reinforcing our love that had transcended the ages.
“Forget him! He is unimportant. We are together now, and you will be mine forever!”
Briefly, I saw a scene where the news of my lover’s death was delivered to me on a parchment sealed with his crest in red wax. I pulled a dagger from my boot as tears of anguish streamed down my face and sobs racked my body. The woman who looked like Maureen, my only and dearest friend then or now, entered the chamber and rushed toward me as I skewered my heart. Her pitiful cries of mourning were the last sounds I heard in that lifetime.
Azazel broke the kiss. I sucked in air and blinked up at the vibrantly colored lightning bolts zigzagging across the sky. The wind had kicked up several knots, and grit and sand peppered my skin, the stinging sensation insignificant in comparison to the lust bubbling within me.
“You see,” said Azazel, his voice slicing through the roar of thunder, surf, and wind, “each time you’ve exiled the Sons of God to that dry-rotting prison of death, and although we possess the power to pry open those dimensional doors, it takes us a few hundred years to do so. As a result, we return in hopes of converting you. Each time you’ve returned, your power is stronger. In this life your magic shows itself in unique ways because the vessel it resides in is too small to contain it.” Perplexed, he studied me for a moment. “Why He has allowed you to be His tool to deliver man from our rule is beyond me, but now you’re mine. Everything is in the past, where it will remain never to return.”
“But why show me the past? Why not just take me and have it done with?”
He rose slightly and looked down the length of me. “I already told you I need you to remember who you are.”
“But why?”
“If you remember everything,” he explained, “then you recover your power from over the ages too. You’re powerful, but even more so now that you remember who you are. To rule this world, I need both my magic and yours.”
Angry at what he’d done and at myself for being so weak, I tried to move, determined to stand and fight him.
His gaze scanned my naked form, and my shorts and panties vanished to re-appear beside me with the rest of my clothes. Frightened, I met his gaze, and he offered me a victorious smile. Even knowing I was at the threshold of no return, I still craved to have his cock inside me. Unable to control my actions, I wiggled, bucked, and spread my legs wider, offering myself to him. However, at the same time, disgust riddled me.
He threw his head back and laughed. A strange glow slid over his body. Angelic light was supposed to be bright, blinding and holy, but Azazel possessed an aura that exuded something dark yet not dark, something malevolent. His clothes disappeared. Nude, he settled on me again, his cock nestled firmly at my opening. He released my hands, and, against my better judgment, I wrapped my arms and legs around him, nudging my center against his prick. No matter how huge he was, I wanted him inside me, desired him to thrust hard and long.
Wings unfurled from his back. Not white, downy wings like I’d seen when I first witnessed him from his lofty perch thousands of years ago. Oh no, these webbed wings of leather possessed sharp talons on their tips. He fanned them back and forth as he parted my folds with his cock, edging ever closer to consummating our union.
My gaze moved from his wings to his face. His beautiful features morphed into hard lines and angles. His eyes elongated, and serpentine, fire-yellow pupils stared back at me.
The scream that tore from my lips hopped aboard the wind and left town. Azazel smiled, revealing jagged teeth and top and bottom fangs that glistened in the lightning. A forked tongue exited his mouth and licked the side of my face.
I shuddered and turned my head away with a plaintive mewl of revulsion.
“What’s the matter, my love?” he slurred through his teeth. “Don’t you love me anymore?”
Déjà vu crashed-landed in the backyard of my mind. Mental images of Cole Vandercourt played like a slideshow. I saw Cole lying on top of me, laughing as he entered my body. I heard my hiss of pain as he broke my hymen, heard his groans of pleasure as he began thrusting.
The shrieks of demonic beasts and fowl grew louder than the sounds of the paranormal storm. The laughter of the bikers joined the raucous noise, followed by the heavy thuds of things landing on the pavement a few yards above us. Motorcycles roared to life, and more laughter punctuated the night.
The Sons of God had arrived. No longer angelic, their selfishness and jealousy had turned them evil. Wickedness had transformed them into demons.
Panic fluttered through me, and I struggled to no avail. Azazel grabbed another handful of my hair and yanked. Tears sprang to my eyes. He adjusted his body more snugly between my legs, nestled his cock tighter between the lips of my opening. I stiffened in response, waited for what had been disguised as pleasure to become torture.
The guffaws and giggles coming from the landing at the dead-end street reminded me of the students who had looked on as Cole had had his way with me. Their jeers echoed in my mind, and the smug, satisfied look of victory on Cole’s face replayed over and over in my head.
No. I will not be a victim again!
I called upon my power. My skin began to glow, and my unbound tresses altered from orange-red to whips of neon lava.
“Stop it,” Azazel said. “You are under my control.”
Magic swirled up out of that quiet region within my soul and spread up into my brain, out along my arms, and threaded through the fibers and cells that composed my body. Azazel pressed his will upon mine, forced his power on me to drive mine back, but the more I thought about Cole and the kids who had looked on as he’d sedu
ced and then raped me, the more pissed off and determined I became.
“Don’t,” he snapped. His long, forked tongue snaked out to caress my neck and the shell of my ear. He shifted his weight, lifted his hips—and I blasted the hell out of him with a shield of pure white flames. He flew backward off of me.
Jumping to my feet, the cool ocean breeze bombarding my body, my hair writhing like serpents, I held the rogue angel in midair in a ball of glowing magic.
“No one, especially the lowly likes of you, will use me again. Man was created over the angels,” I screamed into the wind as I moved Azazel from the rocky shore to the landing above the motorcycle gang. “You are to serve us!” With that, I slammed his body against the pavement so hard bone crunched. At the sound, my stomach flip-flopped. The unbelievable rush coursing through my system slowed, leaving me nauseous and slightly disoriented.
Stunned, the angels in disguise stared at their leader sprawled in all his naked, despicable glory upon the pebbled asphalt. The wind died, and the thunder subsided.
Quiet settled over the rocky shore save for the gentle lapping of the waves and the sound of claws clicking and scrabbling across pavement.
Frowning, I looked beyond the Sons of God and their demonic steel horses to see Shunka Wakan running full tilt down the street toward the landing. Once the dog was about a dozen feet from Azazel, he leapt into the air as a snarling, snapping whirling dervish of fur. Amazed, I crossed the sandy clearing to climb up to the street, but halted as Shunka transformed in midair. A brilliant flash and little lights that winked out like embers left an arced trail through the air. As Azazel slowly sat up, the bundle of twinkles landed on him. The ball of brilliance solidified and knocked the angel flat again. Instead of a dog, a furious, raven-haired man with silvered temples appeared.
“No one,” the man snarled like a beast from Hell, his knees upon the angel’s chest, hands around his throat, “pisses with my mistress. Not even you, Azazel!”
Chapter Thirty
The Sorcerer King and the Fire Queen Page 28
